Just Ask Them How They Made It
by PrincessMaylin
Summary: This is my take on where Season One left off! Please review and enjoy. Love from May!
1. If Bridget Were My Mother

**Just Ask Them How They Made It **

Hi everybody! I'm May and this is my first Ringer fic! I am working my butt off to get this show renewed, but until then, here is my take on where Season One left off! Enjoy and please leave me lots of juicy reviews! And don't be scared by all of the sentence fragments and the like, which are intentional. This story is written largely in stream of consciousness, so don't be surprised to see an adverbial clause standing on its own or a run-on sentence here or there!

Disclaimer: Ringer belongs to CW and CBS Studios!

**Chapter One: If Bridget Were My Mother**

Henry's brownstone wasn't the most beautiful Bridget had ever seen, but it was still nicer than any she had ever lived in with her parents and sister. Gemma's designer quality definitely showed through it with all the decorative flower patterns in the kitchen; and the weird thing was that they all matched. The patterns didn't clash at all. Weird.

It was all Bridget could think about to get her mind off everything Henry had just spent at least thirty minutes telling her. She couldn't believe her sister had actually wanted her to die and that she had been hiding in her lover's house for the past three months! It was completely and utterly unbelievable. Her heart sank rapidly. Just unbelievable.

Henry hadn't even bothered asking her to leave once he had finished his story, which was a story that would be far more likely to strike a deal with a publisher than anything he could have ever written on his own. Instead, he'd gone straight to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. There was no sleeping now, anyway, and Bridget was too overwhelmed with all she had heard to leave just yet. It needed to sink in; and it almost had, until Henry brought up something else that was even more painful to think about than the fact that Siobhan had wanted Bridget dead.

"He needs time," Henry said as he sat down at the table, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor. He looked very tired, even by "Henry" standards, which, at least in Bridget's eyes, had always had one standard: dishevelment. "Andrew," he gestured toward her as she sat down as well, as if she had no idea who he was referring to. "I mean, honestly, if I were him, I probably would have killed myself by now. To find out not only that your wife was having an affair, but also that she killed herself and her sister pretended to be her for, like, the past seven months? Come on, Bridget, you really thought he was just gonna be all 'Oh, that's ok. Whatever. Hey, let's go renew our vows now'? Please." He shook his head, chuckling slightly, though hollowly, and tapped his fingers on his coffee mug, but he didn't seem interested in drinking it.

Bridget felt her face grow hot. No, she thought. It was beyond stupid of her to think Andrew would accept her just like that! That was too big of a lie. She felt devastated, like all the happiness in the world had been ripped out from under her, which it had. By Siobhan. Siobhan. Manipulating, lying, cheating, _evil _Siobhan.

This was all Siobhan's fault.

It had been Siobhan who had convinced John "Charlie" Delario to hire Jimmy Kemper to convince Bridget to come to her. It was Siobhan who had drugged Bridget just long enough to stage a suicide, all because Siobhan knew how desperate Bridget had been to get away from Bodaway Macawi. Siobhan knew whoever was trying to kill her would go after Bridget instead, because Bridget would certainly pose as Siobhan. Siobhan's life, after all, was too good to be true, everything beyond the imagination of a coked-up prostitute.

_Uh, no, _that strange little voice that Bridget was never sure was good or bad spoke up inside her head. You_ chose not to tell the police that your sister had drowned. _You_ got off the boat, took her license, and went straight back to her house. _You_ put on her clothes. _You_ greeted her husband with a kiss. _

Alright, yes. Bridget had chosen to take her sister's place. She didn't have to do any of the things she had done. Was what she did make her just as bad of a person as her sister? Maybe… Possibly…Probably. She had no right, no business, doing what she had done. But now there was no going back. She had to redeem herself somehow.

"Bridget?" Henry's tired voice brought Bridget back from her depressed, guilt-ridden, angry mind. "Your phone."

"What?" she asked, not fully understanding.

"Your phone." He gestured to her pocket. "Your phone is ringing."

"Oh." She had forgotten Siobhan's phone was still in her possession. Who could be calling at this hour? It was near four in the morning. Perhaps Solomon had some news on Siobhan. She hoped so.

She retrieved the phone from her pocket, but the allotted number of rings had already exceeded. There was a "One Missed Call" text staring at her. Until, that is, the phone started ringing again, almost as soon as it had stopped. Her heart leapt when she read the Caller I.D.

"Andrew's Cell."

She pressed the "Ok" button and brought the phone up to her ear, silent for a moment.

"Hello?" She finally said, weakly, her stomach in knots.

"Are you all right?" No preamble. Just the familiar Welsh voice that Bridget thought she might never hear again; and the fact that he was asking her if she was alright, in the same panicked tone he had shown when Rex Barton had attacked her for the second time, she felt a bit relieved. "Machado just called me. He said Macawi attacked you. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm-I'm fine, Andrew. Don't worry." She felt an unpleasant lump rise in her throat.

Henry had his unshaven face in one of his hands, staring at the phone quizzically. He almost looked like he wanted to talk to Andrew. Almost.

"Are you sure? Do you need anything?" She could hear Andrew's unsteady breathing. He was worried about her. There was no hiding that.

"No, no," Bridget replied, wishing with all her might that she _did _need something, just to see him again. "I have a place to stay. I'm gonna stay with the Sheridans a little longer."

He sighed heavily. "Ok. I…just wanted to make sure you were safe…. Good bye."

Her hands trembled. "Bye."

She heard the phone beep off.

That was it. There was no mistaking it. Andrew still loved her, even after what she had done. His voice said it all. He could try to deny it, but that would be just as much of a lie as was Bridget masquerading as Siobhan. It simply wasn't true and never would be. But, it's not like he would ever admit it….

"He's worried about you, huh?" Henry stated. He scratched his head, looking miserable. "Yeah, he loves you, Bridget." He finally took a sip of his coffee and leaned back in his chair, looking off to the side, ashamed. Did he see the future Andrew and Bridget could've had together?

Yes. He wouldn't be trying to hide it if he didn't. She sighed. "We have to tell him."

"What?" His eyes darted towards her a little too quickly for Bridget to buy his question as a what-are-you-talking about response. He knew exactly what they had to tell Andrew, but Bridget let his poor attempt at ignorance slide as she continued:

"About Siobhan being alive. He thinks she's dead, remember? He has to know she's alive, that's she's in New York somewhere."

Henry was silent for a moment. He looked as if he were holding something back, but Bridget couldn't tell what.

"Well, yeah, but—"

"But nothing," Bridget protested, frustrated that Henry wasn't more inclined to take action. He was certainly angry with Siobhan for getting him involved in all of this. Why wouldn't he be more persistent? "Who knows what she's capable of? She could really hurt him. If she went to the apartment, that's a pretty obvious indication that she might want something of her old life back! If she didn't, she wouldn't have set foot in there! We have to let him know. She might to try to seduce him or something!"

"Ha!" Henry let out a chuckle, a real one this time. "Like even. After all the crap she put him through with the affair and all the other stuff he doesn't even know about yet? Not a chance. I mean, she could _try, _but Andrew wouldn't fall for it. He'd _never _take her back. He'd kicked her to the curb harder than I ever would. Come on, Bridget." He took a second sip of coffee. "Be real."

"Still." Bridget felt like punching him. "We need to go to the Hamptons and tell him. He deserves to know."

"Wait! Wait!" Henry's eyes got big, signaling more protest. "Why 'we'? Did I tell you he came in here and socked me in the face? He'd call the cops if I were a hundred feet from him!"

"He needs to hear it from you." Bridget stared him in the eye, angry. "The least you can do to _try _to redeem yourself is to explain the last few months to him. I'm not saying he'll forgive you, which I'm sure he won't, but he'll at least hear some honesty from you…for once."

She glanced down at the coffee in front of her, placing her hands around the mug, but not looking to drink it. It was too cold for her liking by now, anyway.

Henry sighed. "Ok. Yeah. You're right. I do need to tell him the truth." He looked off to the side again, looking even guiltier, if that were possible. _Rightly so,_ Bridget thought, but she ignored it. Instead, she nodded and continued the conversation.

"Ok. I'll call Solomon and we'll go around five. I told him to stay awake just in case I needed him." She paused and added "he doesn't really sleep anyway. We better leave early if we want to catch Andrew."

"Wait? Why right now?" Henry demanded in his whiny voice. "It's not like he's going to leave the Hamptons any time soon. Can't we wait a day or so?"

Bridget's eyes narrowed. "_No._ He needs to know now. Besides, you know he's not sleeping. What better time to tell him when he's wide awake?"

Henry rolled his eyes and looked down at his coffee for a moment. He sighed.

"Ok, um, I… need to call Annafried to come stay with the kids. Hold on."

About thirty minutes later, both Solomon and Annafried had arrived. Bridget had trouble figuring out how Henry could afford a nanny based on his salary, or lack thereof, especially now that Gemma was gone. He hadn't published his _one _book yet, and his father-in-law certainly wasn't giving him a penny. Bridget couldn't grasp it. Annafried was no cheap, minimum wage baby sitter. She meant business, and everything from her tight bun atop her head to her rear so huge that Kim Kardashian would pelt a bag of flour at _her_ said she was a strong woman.

Henry's twins, Dash and Becks (whose names Bridget could never get over), were still sound asleep in bed, not getting up for pre-school until eight, so Annafried went to sleep on the couch, but not before staring at Bridget with a bit of disdain. She was obviously aware of Henry's involvement with Siobhan. This gave Bridget another pinch to her heart. She hated what a person Siobhan was, but it was worse when she herself was getting blamed for everything. Hopefully, soon _everyone_ would be able to see her as Bridget Kelly, not Siobhan Martin.

She felt a pang in her stomach. Bridget _Martin _would've been even better.

As she, Henry, and Solomon got into the limo, the realization that she was about to see Andrew sunk in. What would he say upon seeing her at his beach house uninvited? Would he call the police? Would he decide then and there to turn her in to Machado, exposing her entire charade? No, she thought. He wouldn't go that far. He would protect her secret, especially if he loved her the way she was sure he did. Hopefully.

"So…" Solomon began an attempt at conversation about five minutes down the road. He looked into the rearview mirror to where Henry was sitting. "You're Siobhan's boyfriend?"

Henry looked annoyed. "_Was_ is the keyword. I broke up with her last night."

"Great…" Solomon's drawn out tone gave Bridget the impression that he already harbored some dislike for Henry. Why, she didn't know. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn't believe Siobhan would leave her wealthy British husband for an unemployed writer? That had always been Bridget's opinion, which she didn't regret. Why would a woman leave a man who was willing to die for her?

_Andrew_. Bridget could only look out the window. Would he ever accept her as Bridget? What about Juliet? Bridget was aware of the ways both Catherine and Siobhan had treated Andrew's daughter. Was she really as horrible as they were? She remembered what Juliet had said earlier that night:

"_You're just like Mom. No…worse. She's sick." _

More tears filled her eyes. Was this true?

&& East Hampton, New York &&

_In another life, I would be your girl._

_We'd keep all our promises._

_It'd be us against the world. _

Juliet turned off her iPod hastily, ripping the tiny white plugs from her ears, and angrily wiping the tears from her face. She threw the expensive music player on the floor, wishing it would explode on contact. Why was it that every time she was miserable, every song she listened to always mirrored her situation? Music was supposed to calm anger and frustration and sadness and all the other emotions that she was feeling, but it never did that to her. Furthermore, it was very, very odd (and not to mention, a bit creepy) to know that a Katy Perry song could mirror her own life. Ok, maybe not _that _odd. Juliet had blacked out drunk a few times, and woke up not having any memory of what she had done the night before. She knew had never danced on tabletops, though. However, that was beside the point. In another life, if she had had Bridget as a mother, everything would've been fine. Immediately after the words had come out of her mouth, she had regretted telling Bridget that she was worse than her own mother. It was simply not true. Yes, Bridget had pretended to be someone she was not, in the worst way possible. There was no excuse for doing what she had done. She had no business lying to the world like that. Juliet had every right to cast her away, hate her, spout insults at her. But, she knew it would be wrong to do, because, unlike her own mother, Bridget had never pretended to love Juliet. Her love was as sincere as was the sunrise in the morning. Although she had started out pretending to be someone she was not, in the end, Bridget had fallen in love with Juliet and her father, making them, while it lasted, a true happy family for the first time in Juliet's life.

She was lying on the plush couch in the living room of the beach house, overlooking the best part of the beach. She used to love sitting on the couch and looking out of the huge window. When she was little, she was mesmerized by the color that the sunlight would make on the ocean's surface, a pretty mixture of green and blue with shimmers of light thrown in. But now, there was no sun of speak of. The sky was dark, just like her life.

She sobbed quietly and wiped the tears from her face, turning over and taking her frustration out on the pillow that she was resting her head on, punching it to a lump. In another life, if Bridget had been her mother, there would be no one calling her "bitch" or "whore" or "stupid," or "collateral damage", or "a waste of space," as Siobhan did; and there would be no one getting drunk and smacking her around, and then having her blame her injuries on falling down the stairs, as Catherine had done, strategically, during one of Andrew's business trips to Toronto. She had even bought cheap wine with cash so that Andrew would not get suspicious as to the charges on her credit card. In a way, as much as they had hated each other, Siobhan and Catherine shared almost the same characteristics. Neither of them had ever wanted Juliet, despite Catherine always calling her "Angel" and buying her useless expensive items, and despite Siobhan simpering in front of Andrew and stating how "cute" Juliet was the first time they met.

No, not even Juliet's own mother had ever truly loved her. She had always liked to think otherwise, but deep down, she knew it wasn't true. In fact, in light of the recent conversation with her mother in the hospital, Juliet had the suspicion that her existence was nothing but a ploy to keep Andrew around Catherine.

"_I never wanted kids," Catherine had said, drugged up on morphine and countless other pain killers and nerve relaxants, "until I met your father. He wanted kids." _

"_So," _Juliet had come to conclude her mother's train of thought and logic in this way_, "knowing that he was a young, Welsh finance Major already on his way to becoming a millionaire, I decided for him to get me pregnant. I knew he would stay with me then. He loved children. He would never abandon his own child." _

She could imagine her mother's evil smile when coming up with the idea. It made her stomach turn. Granted, Juliet had no real evidence for this. Not any _concrete_ evidence, anyway, as her mother had never actually admitted to anything of the sort. But the circumstances were certainly suspicious, to say the least.

Andrew and Catherine had met in October of 1993 after Andrew, a twenty-year-old prodigy, had won a scholarship to come across the Atlantic from Cardiff University (or, then, as it was called, The University of Wales, Cardiff) to NYU. He was already on his way to making several investments in the stock market, making his chances of success grand. Meanwhile, Catherine was nothing more than a twenty-five-year-old down-on-her-luck waitress at several local restaurants, making minimum wage and having no real career path to speak of. She had studied at NYU for three years before dropping out, never settling on any Major. Instead, she had used those years in college, by her own admission, to get wasted and high. So, of course, Juliet concluded, she would have gotten involved with a man like Andrew, regardless of the fact that he was five years her junior and—not to mention— not even of legal drinking age in the States.

In April of 1994, Catherine and Andrew married, making Catherine two months pregnant with Juliet at the time, as Juliet would be born full term that November. That fact was what hit the nail on the head for Juliet. Her life had to be a ploy, and that was that. She wasn't sure exactly when her mother started drinking, but she guessed it was probably soon after Juliet quit breast-feeding. At any rate, she didn't notice her mother's pleasure that was alcohol until she was five years old, when Andrew came home one night and found his wife lying on the couch with three empty liqueur bottles on the floor. Juliet was also in the living room, "cooking" dinner in her plastic kitchen for her Barbie dolls. Andrew was so shocked and angry that Catherine would treat their daughter in such a way that he kicked her out of the house, forcing her to stay in a cheap one-hundred-dollars-a-night motel (the worst way to torture her, Juliet imagined).

Yet, it was not until two years later, when Juliet was seven, when she was actually hit with the reality that was her mother's alcoholism. She was literally _hit _and ended up with a sprained wrist. Well, more like thrown to the ground, but anyway. That was the time Andrew had gone to Toronto. He had gone for a meeting with several potential investors over a span of four days. Of course, with him gone, Catherine could now drink her heart out and he would never know. Taking cash out from the ATM was the first step. She could withdraw just enough money for two bottles of wine without giving her husband any need for suspicion.

It started out as a normal day for Juliet. Having said good-bye to her daddy that morning, she went to second grade without an issue in the world. After a day that included a spelling test (Juliet remembered the word "eagle" being the one that stumped her) and two-digit subtraction and addition, Catherine picked her up from school as usual. It was not until later that night, when Juliet had walked into the kitchen to sneak some dessert, that the horrible incident occurred.

All she was going to do was tip-toe into the pantry and get a fruit roll-up, a rainbow one. Those were her favorites, especially when they had the jokes printed on the little paper strips and could be ripped apart to make different shapes. One time she found a triceratops that was blueberry flavored. Unfortunately, every thought of dessert escaped her mind as soon as she saw her mother sitting at the kitchen table, one wine bottle already empty, another one almost three-quarters of the way gone. Juliet knew what her mother was doing. She had seen Andrew kick Catherine out that one time, and a few times since then she had seen her with alcohol. But she had merely brushed it off. Certainly, her mother would never go so far as to get kicked out of the house again. Juliet knew that a little drinking wasn't a bad thing for adults, as her father and several of her friends' parents drank a glass of wine around their children without any problems.

But this time, she knew something was wrong. Two bottles had to be a bad thing, especially from the odd look in her mother's eyes and the strong odor issuing from her mouth.

"Mommy!" Juliet protested, feeling as though she might cry. She really had thought her mother knew better now. "Daddy says you can't drink that much! He's gonna be mad at you!"

Catherine gave her daughter a lop-sided smile. "Mommy'sjushuffinfun, Angel." Her speech was so slurred that Juliet, apart from "Angel," couldn't understand a word of it.

"I'm telling Daddy!" She responded in a way that made her feel powerful for the first time.

Unfortunately, that feeling of power died as soon as Catherine grabbed her by the wrist and slammed her on the tile floor to prevent her from reaching the phone. Juliet heard a crack in her wrist as her hand hit the floor, followed by the worst pain she had ever felt in her life.

Catherine had her sit with a swollen purple blob for a forearm until five o'clock in the morning when she decided to call the ambulance (A good mother couldn't call an ambulance while she was drunk, of course. Sobriety was a must, or at least as sober as Catherine could get.) When the ambulance finally arrived, Catherine made up the story about Juliet falling down the stairs in the dark and hurting her wrist while trying to catch her balance. Juliet made no contradictions to this story, as her mother told her she would be in even bigger trouble if she let anyone else know what really happened. So, of course, Andrew came home a few days later thinking that his daughter's injury was a result of nothing more than an act of little girl clumsiness.

Not that Juliet would ever tell him the truth, at least not so soon. She had tried her hardest to block that incident from her mind, trying to convince herself that her mother had meant her no harm. She tried to make herself believe that Catherine really did care about her; and remarkably, for a while, Juliet's attempt at reverse psychology succeeded.

Until Tessa got hurt.

_Poor Tessa_. Thinking about her situation made Juliet even more of a crying wreck. If Bridget had been her mother, Tessa would've been fine. She wouldn't have been beaten black-and-blue and now forced to have therapy for PTSD, memory loss, balance, and whatever else, because, if Bridget had been Juliet's mother, Tessa wouldn't have spent so much money, because would have been no need for an elaborate rape scheme, because Juliet never would have had her trust fund taken away, because she wouldn't have been tempted by wild parties or drugs, because Juliet would've been perfectly happy….

If Bridget had been her mother, Juliet would've spent that day in second grade, not in an emergency room, but in an ice cream parlor; and instead of a doctor putting an air cast on her arm, Bridget would've put polish on her finger nails. They would've had mother-daughter time, just the two of them. Maybe they would've done something special for Andrew to see when he got home from his trip.

If Bridget had been her mother, Juliet would've had a real family…. She sighed again and put her head back down on the pillow, tracing lines on the couch cushion.

But, the fact remained, she admitted to herself as her stomach tightened into what was possibly the tiniest ball that a stomach could achieve, that Bridget _wasn't _her mother, and at this rate, she never would be.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs broke Juliet out of her misery for a moment and back to reality. She couldn't let her father see the tears. Wiping the rest of them away as hastily as possible, she snatched up the blanket that she had kicked off onto the floor earlier and pulled it over her head. There. Now she was sleeping and he wouldn't think anything of it.

She heard him walk passed her toward the kitchen, flipping the light on and opening one of the cabinets, presumably to get some water. Correct. Next, she heard the water dispenser on the front door of the refrigerator running.

_Ok, _she thought. _Now he'll just go back upstairs. _The dispenser stopped and the footsteps commenced back in her direction, when the doorbell rang.

Wait. _The doorbell? _Who would be knocking on the door of a _beach house, _of all places, this early in the morning?

Juliet heard her father whisper something, probably something along the lines of what she had been thinking, and then his footsteps headed for the door. She heard the front porch light flip on. It was silent for a moment (Andrew might have been looking through the peephole). But the door soon opened, and right when it did, two voices sounded at once.

"Bridget?" Andrew sounded both angry and suspicious.

"Andrew!" Bridget sounded scared and urged.

Juliet popped up from her pretend sleep and headed for the door, trying her best to feign sleepiness with a yawn.

Standing in front of her angered father was Bridget, whom Juliet was half-hoping Andrew would allow back in the house, that thin black guy who'd been Bridget's limo driver for the past few months, and the one person in the world that Andrew probably didn't want to see at the moment, Henry Butler, who, for very good reason, was situated in an almost cowering stance behind the other guy.

"What do you want, Bridget?" Andrew still sounded angry, but with the help from the porch light, Juliet could see that his face was getting red, which, as Juliet knew, was a sign that a man was on the verge of tears. Since men didn't cry in public, she expected he would probably slam the door and run upstairs at any moment. It was something he would never let his daughter see.

"We have to let you know…." Bridget had her foot over the threshold of the door, as if to make sure Andrew didn't slam it shut. "_Henry _just told me the truth." Her emphasis on _"Henry" _was very acidic. Did the whole world hate Henry now? Bridget looked back at the cowardly, scruff-faced man behind her chauffeur (who looked very annoyed at the moment, as anyone that close to Henry Butler should be).

"Get over here and tell him!"

On noticing Henry, Andrew looked like he was ready to push him through a window. Juliet thought he looked almost as menacing as he did the night Juliet had told him about her "rape" by Mr. Carpenter. That hadn't gone too well, either.

Instead, however, Andrew stayed silent and waited for Henry to speak.

"Ok, look." Henry had moved just enough to get in view of Andrew, but still had plenty of room to get a head start back down the driveway if he had to run. "I know you're very, _very _mad at me—I'd be mad at me, too—I mean, I'm a complete jackass and I shouldn't've…slept with your wife." The last four words were barely audible, which, if the situation hadn't been so serious, would have made Juliet laugh.

Andrew didn't move.

"But," Henry continued, voice still shaking, "Siobhan's alive and she's in New York."

"What?" Juliet burst out.

"Sh! Be quiet, Juliet!" Andrew looked as if were as mad at her as he was at everyone else.

Henry sighed. "She's in New York. It's a long story, but she's been living with me since January."

"January?" Andrew repeated incredulously. "January?"

"Yeah, I-" Henry looked very scared now. "She came back from Paris—she'd been there since she'd…faked her suicide…back in September…and- yeah. So I knew Bridget was Bridget…for a long time."

Juliet watched her father's dark eyes glisten. It was the same thing her eyes did when she was positively enraged (she knew because every person who'd ever witnessed her in a moment of anger told her so). Hurriedly, she clung to his arm. Just in case.

"You son of a bitch." It wasn't a yell or an exclamation. His voice was very steady, but it still didn't conceal any of his feelings. "Get off my property. Now."

Henry's face went white with a stamp of shame. He twitched.

_Serves him right_, thought Juliet, feeling satisfied with his demeanor.

"Solomon," Bridget interrupted, looking just as afraid as Henry did, "could you wait in the car with Henry, please?"

"Solomon" the chauffeur looked relieved. He obviously knew something bad was on the verge of happening if Henry didn't get out of the way. Either that, or he just felt awkward being there. Probably both. "Sure thing, Bridget."

Henry didn't need telling twice. He began walking not-so-casually away from the house and to the limo that was waiting far down in the driveway. Solomon followed suit.

Bridget stayed silent until both were out of ear-shot. Finally, she sighed. "Solomon showed me surveillance footage of the day Siobhan drowned, and…it showed her getting in a car with John Delario."

Andrew's eyes suddenly got wider at the mention of "John Delario." Juliet had no idea why. Maybe he was business associate or something. But Bridget continued.

"Henry told me that she faked her death so that I would assume her identity. She knew I was that desperate, and since she thought you were going kill her, she wanted you to think I was her so you'd kill me instead." Silence, but Andrew's expression changed back from shock to rage.

"Um…." Bridget looked as if she were about to crumble right there. It was so sad for Juliet to watch. She wanted to hug her and tell her everything would be ok. That she could come back with them. "I just had to let you know…that Siobhan's still alive. You don't need to be told any more lies, and…" she gulped, trembling, "sh-she might hurt you guys, so…." She couldn't finish, not without a tear breaking free.

"I understand," Andrew responded, levelly. "Thank you." His voice was level, at least, but his ever-so shaking body told Juliet otherwise.

She felt awkward standing there. She had just found out that her stepmother wasn't really dead, which was a shock. Her _evil_ stepmother might still be around to call her names and tease her about stupid things. But, deep down, all she wanted was for Bridget to come back. She was the best woman in Juliet's life. Ever. Period.

Bridget hesitated for a moment. "Well, I better be going, but, before I do, I wanted to give something back to you." She unclasped her hands to reveal that she was still wearing Siobhan's wedding band and the engagement ring that Andrew had given her a few months back. Slowly, she removed each one and held them out for Andrew to take, along with Siobhan's blackberry, the one she had gotten after Juliet had flushed the original one down the toilet after being called a slut, and her wallet, presumably with Siobhan's driver's license inside.

He hesitated for what seemed like an eternity. For a moment, Juliet thought he might tell her to keep them. But, eventually, unfortunately, he did accept what she was holding out to him.

There were more tears in Bridget's eyes now. "I want both of you," she said, looking straight at Juliet and giving her a weak smile "to know that I never meant to hurt you. I've grown to love you both…" she choked as the tears fell down her cheeks, "so much. You've changed my life in such a wonderful way, and, um, I'm gonna stay sober and live a good life, just for you two." She smiled at them weakly before wiping her eyes and sniffling loudly.

Andrew was staring at her intently, but not making a move to say anything.

"And," Bridget looked at Andrew and let out a very deep sigh, "I'll look for you in every poem, every song, every piece of art, just like you said you would me." She took a deep breath and gave another smile, one that Juliet never saw on Siobhan. "I love you both, and I always will. I'll never forget you."

Juliet wanted so desperately to say something, to let Bridget know that she loved her more than she did her own mother, and that she was sorry for even daring to say that she was anything like her, but she was frozen in disbelief that Bridget was willingly walking away.

After blowing them both kisses, she did just that.

Andrew closed the door slowly, staring at the expensive wooden frame for a few seconds, just before he did something that Juliet had _never_ expected him to do, at least, not in front of anyone: he actually burst into tears, collapsing right in front of the door, leaving her to wonder:

Would their lives ever get better?


	2. What A World We Live In

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! I just heard the news that Ringer has been cancelled. I am determined now more than ever to finish this story and make it great! There is a lot of emotion and thoughts in it, because the characters have so much to deal with. It is not all rainbows and butterflies with them, of course. So there will be many, many instances of long and contemplative trains of thoughts, as they are confused and their emotions go back and forth. I hope you guys stick around. Thanks for taking an interest! And PLEASE remember to review, including all of you who put this story on your Alert List last time! Thank you!

**Chapter Two: What a World We Live In**

Tuesday, Four days later

"See ya after history," Clara said before bolting down the hallway to her tutoring session. She was always late, and the fact that she was the tutor made it even worse.

Tessa said a quick "bye" that she wasn't sure Clara heard before running off, a cloud of the thickest black hair on the planet being the last thing in view. Clara was a very nice girl, and Tessa was grateful that she was able to provide her with a ride to and from school, but she was so unorganized. How she was ever picked to be a tutor, Tessa would never know.

She found her locker and began rummaging through her purse for the combination. Ever since her horrific beating, her memorization, especially when it came to numbers, was horrible. So horrible, in fact, that she was flunking math, which had once been her best subject. Simple subtraction and addition were even hard to do, and multiplication tables were out of the question without a calculator. Tessa never would have imagined herself as a student with a "traumatic brain injury," as her doctor called it, but apparently, that was what she was. She was an official special needs student, complete with an IEP and all the benefits that the IDEA had to offer, but she had to admit that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. There were plenty of children who had bigger problems than issues with remembering numbers, of course.

The slip of paper she had successfully fished out of her purse was very crumpled by now. She needed to write the combination down somewhere easier to read. That is, if she remembered to do so. Her foster parents didn't have the money for the fancy computer that most kids with memory problems used to put their schedules and whatever else inside, so Tessa had to resort to the old-fashioned pencil-and-paper method. 05-13-08, it read, followed by the directions, left and right, for each number. The ink was still dark enough for the numbers to be decipherable, thank goodness.

She grabbed the lock and started turning it toward the "five," when she dropped her purse and heard a _clink _as her keys fell out and hit the floor.

_Great. _Clumsiness was another issue Tessa had been having since her injury. She couldn't go a day without dropping anything or stumbling into anyone at least once. She bent down to retrieve the three keys, thinking how dumb her foster parents were for having different sets of keys, one for the front door and one for the back, instead of just one. Well, maybe it wasn't so dumb, because after Tessa had been beaten, they had every right to want to change the locks, but she felt it was unnecessary for her to carry around two keys for the same house. Luckily, Bobbie, her foster mother, had put strips of tape on them with the letters "F" and "B" so that she could remember which was which. Still, it was confusing. The third key was special. Tessa no longer owned a car, as her doctor had said driving was strictly out of the question "indeterminately," but she still kept a copy of her old key as a souvenir. Not the key of the car that she'd bought with Juliet Martin's father's money from the rape settlement, but the one from her first car: her blue Toyota, the one she learned to drive in. Deep down inside, she had always liked it better than any Rolls Royce, but had been too proud of finally being a millionaire for a day to admit it. In the end, all that scheming had cost her more than she could afford with _any _amount of money. Her stomach tightened in guilt as she cursed herself inwardly for her horrid actions. She wished she could've just been happy with what she'd already had and everything would have been fine.

"Hey Dory!"

Tessa rolled her eyes as she stood up, her feelings changing from major guilt to absolute annoyance. _Ellie, Come on. You could've at least waited until I got my books out. _

Ellie Wheaton was a girl in Tessa's math class whom she'd know since sixth grade. A buxom, strawberry blonde preppy girl with no taste in clothes (she'd once worn a skirt made out of her mom's eighty-year-old tablecloth to school and had the stupidity to _brag _about it), Ellie had always been one of the "outsiders" of the school, unlike Tessa, who had always been one of the popular ones. She was always looking for attention and new ways to be noticed, and this year, bullying happened to be one of those "new" ways. Lately, of course, her target just happened to _be_ Tessa.

Yes, it did have something to do with Tessa's memory, or most likely, _all _of it had to do with her memory. Ever since two weeks ago when the two were assigned a project together and Tessa had completely messed up the numbers and formulas that they were supposed to use, resulting in a far less-than-perfect score, Ellie had been picking on her and calling her nothing but "Dory" in reference to the fish from the film _Finding Nemo_, who also had memory loss, but of a completely over-exaggerated quality. Ellie's obnoxious friend, Clover Giebel, who, with the soaring popularity of _The Hunger Games _franchise, insisted that she be called "Clove" by everyone on the planet, was standing beside her, her signature brown ponytail coming loose for probably what was the thirtieth time this morning. She was always pulling it tighter. Clover was the stereotypical bully sidekick: had a small stature, said few words, but gave out a lot of stupidity.

"What do you want, Ellie?" Tessa wasn't in the mood to be picked on. In fact, she was getting a headache, which, according to her doctor, was a cause for concern. "I need to go to the clinic," she commented, hoping that would give Ellie the incentive to leave her alone.

"What's wrong, Dory?" she said in mock sympathy, the kind adults give to kids when they fall and scrape their knees. Her eyes widened and she gasped, stating in the same fake tone, "Did you forget your tampon?"

Clover burst out laughing in snorts, as if it were really that funny.

"Hey! Guess what, everybody?" Ellie turned around and made a dramatic gesture toward the rest of the people in the hallway, shouting, "Dory forgot her tampon!"

Over half the kids stared; a few snickered, but only one person had any real opinion on the matter, and it just happened to be a strong enough opinion to cause a fight.

"Shut up, bitch! No one cares!"

Tessa was very surprised to see Juliet Martin, the "Rich Girl" and fellow instigator in the awful rape accusation, stomping her way over to Ellie with the angriest look on her face that Tessa had ever seen on anyone. She was followed in toe by her friend Andrea Ramos, who looked reluctant to follow, and London Sheridan, a tenth grader and the only other "Rich Girl" on campus. London wasn't as open or obnoxious about having money as Juliet was, though, so most people just overlooked her, which, in all honesty, was very ironic for anyone who had ever watched the Disney Channel show The Suite Life on Deck.

Usually, Juliet would be ignoring Tessa, pretending like neither of them ever met, because, frankly, after Tessa's beating and the whole "rape plan" went sour, they had no real reason to be friends anymore. Or at least, that was what Tessa thought. Juliet had barely spoken to her since the two had found out that Juliet's mother had been behind the beating.

But today was a big surprise, not only because Juliet must have been extra pissed or frustrated about something in order to defend Tessa at all, but also because of her choice of attire. Her usual "rich girl" outfit: a tank top with her boobs hanging out, a mini skirt, huge Tiffany earrings, and clown make-up were now replaced with a hideous gray sweatshirt, blue jeans, and no make-up at all. Yeah, something must've been going on.

Juliet greeted Ellie with a menacing stare. "You leave her _alone_. She hasn't done anything to you."

"Aw." More mockery came from Ellie's mouth. It was really starting to annoy Tessa. "Does Rich Girl wanna fight?"

"_No._" Juliet's response certainly didn't match the look she had on her face. "If you had memory problems, would you want someone to pick on you?"

By now, everyone in the hallway was watching with intensity.

"Juliet." Andrea took hold of her friend's arm. "She's not—"

"Would you?" Juliet repeated, ignoring Andrea's warning and jerking her hand away almost viciously. "Would you want someone to pick on you, bitch? Answer me!"

Ellie rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Rich Girl has anger issues," she commented to Clover, who had a weird smile on her face, looking like a drunk.

The answer to Ellie's comment was yes. Juliet had so much rage inside of her that she looked like she was about to cry. This had gone far enough. It had to stop.

"Juliet," Tessa began nervously, hoping desperately that her input would have some affect on former accomplice's mood and just make her walk away. "It's fine." She hurriedly glanced at the clock across the hallway. 8:23, it read. "First period starts in, like, five minutes. We need to go. "

"Yeah, Juliet, come on," Andrea insisted. She tried to pull her friend's arm again, but Juliet snatched it away. Tessa had a feeling that Juliet wasn't just angry about Tessa being bullied. Something was _really _bothering her, because this was not normal.

"I'm not leaving until she apologizes to Tessa," the wealthy girl responded matter-of-factly. She looked Ellie straight in the eye, her face growing as red as those gross Maraschino cherries that Bobbie liked on her milkshakes "_Tell her you're sorry_." Her teeth were clenched so tightly that the words were barely audible.

Tessa felt her eyes grow wide and her palms sweaty. Her head was throbbing now. This was not good. Something was going to happen. Other kids were now gathering expectantly, like people at sports games did when two drunk fans from opposing teams were about to take each other on, which, of course, was more entertaining than the alternative game they had bought tickets to watch in the first place. She wished the principal or a teacher would hurry and come to the rescue, but of course, adults only do anything _after_ the damage has been done.

Now, if Ellie had been a smart girl, she would have been able to see that Juliet Martin was serious and obviously meant business if the large blonde said anything to the contrary of what she wanted. It should have been obvious, not only because of her glistening stare and clenched teeth, but also because of the hot, angry tears that were now coming out of her eyes. Unfortunately, Ellie was stupid.

"No," she retorted sassily, sounding much more like a spoiled, airhead heiress than Juliet ever had.

At the same time, Tessa would later conclude, if _she _herself had been smart, she would have put her keys back in her purse faster and then there would have been no time for Juliet to notice that she still had them in her hand. If that had been the case, then Juliet wouldn't have grabbed them from her slippery palms and all hell wouldn't have broken loose.

But, that wasn't how it went.

&& New York, New York &&

The taxi ride back to the Sheridans' apartment was probably one of the gloomiest that Bridget had ever experienced. This was the fourth day she had applied for ten consecutive jobs, literally going from establishment to establishment, asking for applications and filling them out right on the spot. She was worried that there might not be too many businesses left in New York who were actually hiring. Some of those she had already applied to weren't, but the managers had assured that they "would be hiring in the near future" or that they "were always accepting applications regardless." So, Bridget filled them all out. The only bright side to it was that she was finally able to use her own name. She was Bridget Kelly again. If anything was going right, it was that she could finally be herself. Now that Macawi was dead, the FBI had no reason to keep looking for her, so there was no harm in it.

Of course, Bridget Kelly's résumé was non-existent. There was no way that she could give any former employer of hers as a reference, particularly when the most recent one was lying dead in a crime lab back in Wyoming, and she had never been to college, so she had no degree to show anyone. Her best bet at getting hired for any job was probably as a waitress or a cashier, minimum-wage earnings that would probably mean she would not be finding her own apartment any time soon.

That being said, she had no idea when she would be able to leave Greer's home. She and Jeff had been nice enough to offer Bridget a place to stay for "as long as she needed," but she felt guilty taking their space. She wanted to get back on her feet, but it was just not possible at the moment.

Whatever was to happen, Bridget promised herself that she would _never, _not matter how hard her life got, _ever _go back to stripping or prostituting. She had left that life behind for Andrew and Juliet, her only real family, regardless of whether or not they would ever _admit_ the fact that three of them were a family. They _were_ her family and had shown her more love than anyone ever had. She would stay on the right path for them, no matter what.

But, she couldn't stop thinking about them. She had been crying over them for days, wishing, praying, that one of them would call and say that they needed her for something, _anything_, but there had been nothing. They had not even contacted the Sheridans, knowing that Bridget was staying with them. Maybe they _did_ want her out of their life forever.

The car screeched to a halt in front of the building, the driving having almost forgotten which one was the correct complex. It was a good thing he remembered at the last minute, because Bridget hadn't been paying attention, although she certainly was when the car knocked her forward, making her nauseous. She hated that.

"Thanks," she grunted, annoyed, as she handed him the cash fee.

"Sorry about that, ma'am," he replied, sounding worried that the mistake might have cost him his tip.

"Don't mention it." She got out and headed inside, wondering if anyone was going to be home. Jeff had left town that morning and wouldn't be back until Friday, but Greer had given her a spare key, knowing that Bridget would be out job hunting that day.

As soon as she began walking up the stairs, Bridget regretted taking them rather than the elevator. She had been on her feet all day, walking from shop to shop, and was very tired, and her stomach was still queasy from the taxi cab jolt. It would be nice when she could lie down on the couch for awhile.

Finally, she made it to Room 107, wishing that these penthouses had elevators into their living rooms like Andrew's had. But, oh well. Turning the key in the lock, she could hear the television. Yep, Greer was home. She loved watching those stupid jewelry shows, the ones that sold fake jewels for a thousand dollars at least. Well, of course, the sellers said they were real, but come on? Everyone knew better.

"Hey!" Greer had the first greeting. She was sitting in her huge armchair, sipping a glass of ice tea through a straw and smiling at the first sight of her new friend's head popping into view. Bridget wished she could be that relaxed. "How'd it go?"

Bridget sighed. "It went. I filled out as many applications as I could."

Greer responded by smiling reassuringly. "Oh, don't worry. You'll get something if you just keep trying."

"I hope so." Bridget couldn't help replying sadly. "Do you mind if I lie down?" She gestured to the couch. "The taxi driver jolted and made me a little sick to my stomach."

"Oh yeah." Greer rolled her eyes. "Those New York taxi drivers. They don't know a thing about driving. Stop, start, stop, start. That's all they do. That's why I prefer the train when going anywhere."

That's right. Bridget remembered, as she lay down on couch next to the armchair. Greer's family didn't own a limo.

"I can't believe you watch shows like this," she commented. "They just scam people."

Right then, she regretted her words. Who was she to judge scams when her life had been nothing but a scam the past seven months? And not just with her masquerading as her sister, but with everyone else around her. Andrew. Juliet. Catherine. Henry. Siobhan. They had all been involved in their own cheats and lies.

A wave of emotions passed over her. More sadness and guilt over what she had done, ruining the lives of those around her, and anger and confusion, directed at Andrew, over not accepting her, after she had accepted him. She had stayed with him after he had admitted that the Ponzi scheme was his idea, so why wouldn't he stay with her? She could see that he was truly, sincerely remorseful for what he had done, so why couldn't he see how sorry she was? Was her identity fraud really more horrible of a sin than his embezzlement? Legally, no. They would have both gone to jail for their actions. A judge would have granted neither of them any leniency. But, morally, she just didn't know. Her head was too fogged with sadness and yearning for a man who now believed all their love to be a lie, and there was no way to convince him that it was not.

"Hey, you ok?"

Greer's voice brought Bridget back to the present. The TV was showing a flimsy-looking emerald necklace with "Now just $3,000" written in the screen's left margin. Bridget hadn't even realized that she'd been crying and was too embarrassed to wonder how long.

Her auburn-haired friend, always the helper, walked over to the island in the kitchen to retrieve a box of tissues. Thank goodness they were Puffs Plus Lotion because, if not, Bridget was going to have a very raw nose by the time she was done with them. Snot was already oozing out. Greer handed her one and sat down next to her.

"Look, honey," she began in a sad, but sympathetic tone, the kind Bridget's mother had always used when one of her daughter's was losing a battle with whatever and she had to tell them they needed to give up. "This may be _really _stupid of me to make this analogy, but I think it's fitting. This isn't _Legally Blonde._"

Bridget almost snorted. "No kidding," she replied as she blew her nose hastily before its contents had a chance to drip on Greer's couch.

"I _mean_," her friend clarified, "you can't earn Andrew's love back. You've done all you can do already. If he wants you back, he has to make the decision for himself and come get you."

Bridget nodded, but didn't say anything, because she knew it was true.

"Really," Greer kept going, wanting to emphasize her point. "If he loves you, he _will _realize it and come back. It's how love works. I mean—" she let a sigh that made her lips quiver "—I just know he loves you. If you had seen him with Siobhan, believe me, you would see how obvious it is."

Yeah, that was Siobhan. When did her sister become so horrible to everyone? Was it all because of Bridget? And Dylan? And Sean?

There was an $8,000 bumblebee broach on the screen.

Greer kept talking. "I mean, honestly. She didn't give a crap about him. It was all money, money, money for her. He was just her sugar daddy or whatever it's called. That's why I was so surprised to find out that she was having an affair with _Henry Butler _of all people. He's probably the brokest man in town. I mean, obviously, there are guys with less money, but you know what I mean. He's just not the guy I'd picture her with. Unemployed. Hasn't even published a sentence. I really thought she was looking at Jeff for a while…."

There was a pause as she reached for the remote and turned the TV off. Finally.

"But, really, Bridget," she began again, "Andrew was completely miserable with Shiv. She barely even looked at him, and when she did, it was just to give him a rude comment or something that made her look like a snobby bitch. Around us, that is. In a more public place, I'm sure she put on an act or something to look like an adoring trophy wife, but around us, her true colors really showed, and they were _not _pretty."

An act. That was what Andrew had called his and Siobhan's relationship the first night Bridget had met him. An act, a game set by Siobhan's rules. Was that really all this was to her? A game? A game with people dying and hurting and with her laughing in revenge the whole way to the finish line? Was she really so angry and so selfish that she was willing to make everyone miserable, just so she could finally get over Sean?

Somehow, Bridget didn't think Sean would be ok with his mother doing that. She could imagine him in Heaven, an angel, looking down with disapproval at his mother. Was he acquainted with those other child angels? Caylee Anthony, the Smith boys, the Yates children, and anyone else whose mothers should have never_ been_ mothers?

"I could try talking to him for you." Greer looked at Bridget with those huge eyes of hers. "But, ultimately, it's something he has to do for himself. Give him a while, let him calm down and think, and if he comes back, then you'll know he was meant to be yours, but, if he doesn't, then—" she shrugged "—then there's no use crying. I'm really sorry, Bridget, "and it was obvious that she truly _was _sorry, "but, that's all the advice I can give you."

Bridget smiled weakly, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. "And it was the best advice ever." Truly, it was. Greer was exactly right. Andrew would come to her if he wanted her, and she would just have to wait and see if he did. She sat up, having forgotten all about her nausea as it had been replaced by knots, which seemed to be more and more common these days, and wiped the rest of tears on the sleeve of her sweater.

"You're welcome," Greer responded with a smile and a pat on Bridget's back. "You're a real friend, better than Siobhan ever was. No joke."

Bridget sniffled through a chuckle, not knowing what else to say. She didn't know if she believed that to be true or not.

Greer stretched her arms and stood up from the couch and headed toward the kitchen. "I'm gonna get some more tea. Would you like some? It's sweet and freshly brewed just this morning."

"Sure." Bridget didn't remember the last time she drank sweet iced tea. It was a Southern delicacy, one that was rarely seen in a Yankee town like New York. The thought was refreshing.

The refrigerator door opened at the same time Greer's phone started ringing.

"Hey sweetie, you didn't miss the bus, did you?" Greer was obviously talking to London. Judging from the grandfather clock next to silverware armoire, it was three o'clock. High school had just let out a few minutes before. "What? Is she ok?"

Greer ran back into the living room, eyes wide, a sure sign that something was wrong. Bridget hopped up from the couch in concern.

"Oh my Gaw—ok, how long have you been there? Are you a witness? Does Andrew know?"

Bridget felt her stomach drop. Andrew, a father with already too much on his plate to handle, and London, a student at the same school as his daughter, combined with a scary phone call could only mean one thing….

Greer kept talking, finally saying "Good-bye" to her daughter after what felt like an eternity to Bridget. As the phone off beeped off, her face turned as white as a sheet. Bridget really felt like vomiting now.

The words came disbelievingly out of her friend's mouth. "Juliet's been arrested."


	3. The Slap Heard Round The World

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! This is probably gonna be my last chapter for about a month, as I'm heading to Belgium and I'm not sure how much free computer time I'll be able to have. So bare with me! And please leave me lots of reviews! I need reviews because they are the only way I can improve and give you more of what you want and less of what you don't want! What am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? I want to know why this story is on your Favorites List or your Story Alerts! So please press the blue button at the bottom! Thanks to you who have already and please continue! Enjoy Chapter 3! Oh, and does anyone know how to properly divide scene breaks with a line? If you do, please let me know how to do it. I hate my scene breaks. They are so cheesy and not professional looking at all. So if anyone knows how to get those lines between scenes, please tell me! Thank you and I hope this chapter is everything you want in a Ringer fic!

**Chapter Three: The Slap Heard Round The World**

_Ding, ding, ding. _The bell signaling that the door to the police station was opening kept ringing as officers came and left with arrests. This must have been a busy day for them. Thankfully, Tessa had never been in trouble with the law, but she knew from Bobbie's stories of her twenty-some-odd years on the force that most cops got nothing of the sort of action that had been glamorized on TV and in movies. Bobbie loved watching the show Cops and bitching to the officers on the screen about how staged their careers were.

"There's no way he does this every day," she had griped once, obviously jealous that the guys on TV got to do so many drug busts in one night.

Nevertheless, there were indeed some characters coming into the station today whose situations could have been staged for television. Tessa would have laughed at one guy in particular if her own situation hadn't been so serious. He was ridiculous: a DUI suspect, so obviously drunk, who was blaming his behavior on his waitress at lunch, saying that he wouldn't have been drunk had she gotten his order correct and brought him four _virgin _margaritas instead.

Uh, ok. Whatever.

Tessa rolled her eyes. Cops may have been incompetent at times, but they weren't stupid, and besides, _four _margaritas? How big was his stomach? And how could he afford that many margaritas? Was the dude rich? And if he was, what kind of seven-figure salary job didn't give a crap if their employees showed up wasted? He must have been another rich guy with nothing but an inheritance to squander away.

But, she knew she shouldn't be concerned with that right now, no matter how incredible it might have been. She had her own issues and wished to God that the bell would stop ringing because it wasn't easing the situation. It was, in fact, giving her more of a headache, which was _not _being helped in the slightest by the ice in the plastic sandwich baggy on her head. This was the third pack she'd had on her head today, the third time the ice had done nothing but drip down her shirt, making her look like a drooling baby. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and threw the bag away in the trashcan next to the hard wooden bench she and the three other "witnesses" were sitting on.

3:19 the clock on the wall above the warden's desk read. It was oddly cheerful looking for such a setting: it had bumblebees and flowers on it, as if the cops were just mocking all the detainees.

3:19. She, Andrea, London, and Clover had been at the station for nearly seven hours, missing a whole day of school. Yet, it was for the best that the cops had made them stay the entire day. Otherwise, the nosy kids at school would have bombarded them with a million questions and spreading nothing but crappy gossip. There was already no doubt in Tessa's mind that as soon as the dismissal bell had rung thirty minutes ago all the students had bolted out the door to tell everyone on the street and their dog that Juliet Martin, the "Rich Girl," had morphed into Wolverine and got in a key fight with Ellie Wheaton, the "Tablecloth Bitch." Clara must have been bored not having anyone to ride home with from school today. Maybe she got someone else to tag along.

The cops had stripped the three girls sitting impatiently on the butt-soring bench of their cell phones, purses (excluding wallets), and whatever else they had on them that might be used as a "weapon," according to the cops. The police obviously felt that if two teenage girls could start a fight with household items, then they certainly didn't want to take any chances with four others. Besides, the girls didn't care, anyway. At least Tessa, Andrea, and London really didn't care. Clover had put up a pretty strong argument for her phone, curse words and all, and had laughed at the idea of a cell phone being a weapon (apparently, she was not familiar with the incidents involving Naomi Campbell and Russell Crowe). But anyway, they were all preoccupied with thinking of a good way to tell their parents about the situation they were in, one that they didn't quite even understand fully. Of the four of them, London had been the only one brave enough to ask the warden to use the pay phone to finally call her mother after so many hours. In fact, she had just finished calling her about fifteen minutes before. None of the police officers themselves had given any explanation as to why they had not yet contacted the four girls' parents themselves. Perhaps they were too focused on the two girls who were actually involved, maybe they were too busy with all the other suspects coming in, or maybe they just didn't care.

Tessa had been too shocked to try to call anyone just yet. She knew that she wouldn't get in trouble with her foster parents after explaining to them that she was just a witness to the violence. That wasn't the reason why she hadn't done it. Instead, she was trying to piece together why Juliet would do something so stupid in the first place. She had already gotten in a cat fight with Tessa last semester and that had gone bad enough with nowhere near the results that this particular fight had. Why would she even risk getting in worse trouble? Did she even care about the consequences? Was she really that stupid?

Judging by her rage, it was evident to Tessa that Juliet had something bad going on, and it must have been something beyond bad, beyond horrible, even, to make her lose her cool in such a harsh and unpredictable way. It was completely out of character for her. Completely.

The incident itself had been a terror to watch. Juliet had lunged for Ellie so fast that the larger girl didn't even have a chance to defend herself. Ellie was shoved against the lockers with a bang as loud as the sound of a thousand suits of armor crashing together, followed by Juliet jabbing Tessa's keys at her indiscriminately. Everyone in the hallway was screaming, a few were running away, but no one of strength did anything for at least thirty seconds, until a senior boy grabbed Juliet from behind and slammed her to the ground, sitting on top of her. A split second later, the new principal, Dr. Merriman, a Trunchbull-like woman if there ever was one, came bashing through all of the screaming bystanders like a bowling ball and took hold of Juliet, twisting her arms behind her back. She had obviously been a police officer at some point in her life or had at least taken some martial arts. If she had just arrived a minute before, none of the girls would be sitting here right now. But, adults never did anything right.

Ellie remained cowering against the lockers with her hands over her face, sobbing, even after all the bystanders had been forced by at least six teachers to go to class. Tessa gasped loudly when Ellie finally removed her hand from her face. That was it. Juliet was screwed, because Ellie had blood dripping down her face from her forehead, her left cheek, and—Tessa's heart had skipped a beat—her left eye.

Had Ellie's eye been damaged?

As it turned out, no. The eye itself had not been hurt. But, there was a gash that led from just above her eyebrow to just a little ways under it. Stitches were needed, of course, but Ellie still had sight. The gash in her forehead was much longer, also requiring stitches, but the cut on her cheek would heal just fine with a band aid.

But, Tessa wasn't sure if Juliet would heal at all. It was shocking to see a girl who was once so in control go so crazy. Within twenty minutes, the cops had her in handcuffs and she had gone absolutely insane. Literally insane. She was crying hysterically, flailing on the ground and kicking her feet so violently that the police had been forced to remove her shoes. It was a _very_ good thing she had chosen not to wear make-up today, because her face and eyes were as red and as bloated as someone who had just been stung by an entire hive of wasps.

Her behavior continued at the police station, along with her constant begging and screaming at the officers not to tell her father what had happened, saying that he "wasn't feeling well" and that he had been shot, that the artery the bullet had hit would re-severe itself if he had to deal with anymore stress. She kept screaming that he was going to "kill her" if he found out what she had done. Well, of course, the cops ignored her, as that would never happen, and responded by dragging her into a room that was so obviously reserved for people with her kind of emotional breakdowns, as there were no windows for passersby to see through and, from what Tessa could see briefly when the door opened, there was a place to lie down. But, there was no easing Juliet's hysteria, as she had been crying and screaming for the past six hours. Her wailing was still very clear from down the hallway.

Throughout that time, Tessa and the other girls had been asked questions one-by-one, which included: "What happened?" "Who started it?" Blah blah blah. All the usual questions that you seen people being asked in the five million crime shows that there were on TV. Tessa's answer was probably the most useful, as she was the original victim in it all, while Clover's and Ellie's combined were probably the most use_less_, as they were bound to make up a lie. Ellie was then whisked off to the hospital for stitches, making her look even more like a victim and giving her a free pass to leave the station that none of the other girls had just yet.

Tessa was now watching the window of the interrogation room across the hallway with a mixture of fear and sadness. Dr. Merriman, Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton, and Mr. Martin were sitting at a table with two officers, discussing something that Tessa would rather not know about. She couldn't help feeling horrible for Mr. Martin. He was such a kind man, but he had been through probably more than he could handle. As if the rape scheme wasn't enough, his daughter was probably in the biggest trouble of her life. He would definitely cancel her trust fund now, no doubt about it, and she would probably wind up in juvenile detention or something similar, not to mention face possible expulsion from school and maybe even a lawsuit from the Wheaton family.

It was evident that he was very stressed, as Juliet had implied in her rant about his gunshot wound. His face was very pale and drawn, like he hadn't slept in days, and there were cuts on it here and there, as though he had nicked himself shaving. Now, that was weird. Tessa didn't know much about businessmen, but surely any spots on the face were considered unprofessional, weren't they? Who wouldn't want to hide blood if they were meeting with people who were potentially going to make them a ton of money? Furthermore, he wasn't wearing his usual full business rich guy attire with the suit jacket and tie that he had always worn during the other times that Tessa had seen him. Instead, he was wearing a polo shirt, more of a casual look, which gave off even more of the impression that he wasn't in the mood to put his best foot forward today. He was still handsome, though. Tessa had to admit it. Not that she was attracted to him, at least not to the extent that she had been to Mr. Carpenter, a fantasy that she sorely regretted and would _never _try to make a reality again, no matter how hot the guy was. But, Mr. Martin had a proper air about him; everything from his posture to his defined jaw gave it off. Even his square forehead said something about his position. It was an appealing forehead, of course, one that added to his handsomeness, unlike that of Frankenstein's monster or Bill Hader, who were just about as ugly as they got. He was lean and physically fit, a definite cyclist or runner, and had given his daughter his dark eyes and curls, although her curls were a few shades of brown lighter and about two feet longer, and were normally either straightened or styled in a way that added to her look of superiority among the other students. At any rate, he was a much better choice to look at than Mr. Wheaton, a bald man from whom Ellie had so obviously inherited her large bone structure, or even Mrs. Wheaton, a smaller woman with an ugly mop of frizzy brown curls and clad in a yellow pant suit that made her look like a canary. She didn't quite look like a woman who would let her daughter wear dusty old upholstery to school, though. She reminded Tessa more of that dorky teacher from the movie Clueless who had "runs in her stockings and more lipstick on her teeth than on her mouth," in looks, at least, although she wasn't wearing stockings and Tessa couldn't see her teeth from so far away to confirm if she had anything on them.

_Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. _A strange noise snagged Tessa's attention away from the adults. What the heck was that?

She looked over in annoyance at Andrea, who was nervously gulping down what had to be her sixth can of Minute Maid since they had been there. It was surprising that the police station hadn't put a limit on how many times Andrea could use the dispenser, and what Tessa really couldn't wrap her head around was that Andrea hadn't used the bathroom once. Her bladder must have been awfully powerful. But, if drinking lemonade was her way to relieve stress and nervousness, then it shouldn't have been a big deal. It only _was _a big deal because she couldn't drink it quietly.

"Hey, Andrea," Tessa tried not to sound irritated. "Could you tone it down a bit?"

But, Andrea wasn't listening. Her face was very pale, which Tessa (she had to confess as to her ignorance of pigmentation) never thought was possible to that extent on a person who was half African-American and half Hispanic.

"I hope he doesn't really beat her," the olive-skinned her girl said, looking straight at Mr. Martin with her lemonade not even half an inch away from her mouth. "Juliet, I mean. I hope her dad doesn't hurt her like she says he will."

"Don't be silly, Andrea," London commented, but she didn't sound or look like she believed it herself. Her face was as white as snow, she was chewing on a piece of her reddish brown hair, and Tessa could see her hands shaking like a vibrator in her lap. "He's too British… British people don't beat their daughters." She then added in a light tone, "that's Alabamans."

Tessa let out a giggle._ Now there's a Facebook status, _she thought. Finally, there was something to lighten the mood in this dreary place.

"Alabamans beat their _wives_," Andrea countered with a rising of the corners of her mouth, finally lowering her drink to lap level.

London rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You get the idea."

Clover hadn't said anything to the other three girls for the entire time that they had been there. She had been keeping to her ponytail, fixing it and undoing it, then not liking it and braiding her hair instead. Then, repeating the cycle over and over again. In other words, her hands had been very busy. Her mouth had not, making Tessa confused as to why she would so suddenly decide to speak up. For show, she realized.

"And, anyway, everyone knows that there are two kinds of British men: the Prince William type and the Russell Brand type. One of them is a gentleman with lots of money and the other one's a drugged-up whack job rocker guy with—"

But Clover never got to finish her sentence because the door to the interrogation room opened and the adults were walking out. Dr. Merriman acknowledged the girls with a nod and walked out of the station with another nod to the warden, whereas Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton sprinted out as fast as Mr. Wheaton could move, noticing no one, hurrying to join their daughter at the hospital.

Of course, unsurprisingly, Mr. Martin did not leave. Instead, upon walking out of the room, one of the officers led him, expressionless, down the hallway to where Juliet was still crying her eyes out. The officer unlocked the door, and let Mr. Martin in casually, but then closed the door quickly. Even the officers knew what Juliet was in for. Tessa's stomach tightened.

There was a gasp and a somewhat of a whimper, followed by silence. The four girls on the bench watched the door, scared, in anticipation. So did several of the officers. And a few suspects.

Then it happened: the loudest slap in the world was heard coming from the windowless room, resonating off the police station walls.

Clover burst out laughing.

Andrea ran to the bathroom.

&& Juliet's POV &&

Sometime before Andrew had kicked Catherine out of the house for drinking excessively in front of their daughter, an incident occurred when five-year-old Juliet was on the playground in kindergarten. Swinging was her favorite activity. In fact, it was the _only _activity that she did during recess. But, on this particular day, both swings were occupied by two mean girls in Juliet's class, a blonde named Becca and redhead named Alex, who knew very well that the swings were her favorite. Enraged, Juliet decided to take matters into her own hands and did the first thing that came to her mind: she picked up the wood chips that were spread out on the ground beneath her and threw them , ironically, almost hitting both girls in the eyes. The teacher had responded by taking her to the principal's office and having her sit there until Catherine came to get her later that day. Her mother had dragged her to the limo, her freshly manicured nails digging into Juliet's wrist, the same one she would sprain later on, and scolded her the entire way home. There was no telling whether or not she had been drinking at all before arriving at the school, as Juliet did not yet know the signs, but Catherine had had the lack of sense enough to make a comment that Juliet never forgot:

"_If you had a nanny, I wouldn't have to put up with your nasty behavior."_ Andrew had never liked the idea of a nanny for some reason. (Most likely it was because he figured that Catherine, as a housewife, had plenty of time on her hands to watch a child while he was working, which would have been true, of course, if she hadn't spent every waking hour getting manny-peddies, massages, and whatever else.) So, Juliet grew up without one.

As for the comment itself, looking back on it, Juliet concluded that it further emphasized her mother's complete selfishness. How could Catherine claim that she loved her after saying something like that? A real mother, a caring mother, would never say such a thing. And anyway, how would a nanny be any different than a mother in preventing bad behavior? Nannies were for women who worked and needed help watching their children, not women who just wanted them because their children were interrupting their post-Happy Hour shopping spree.

However, that comment wasn't the reason why the memory had suddenly decided to come back to Juliet today. It came back because, that night, Andrew had been so furious with his daughter's conduct that he had dealt with it by giving her a spanking.

It was the only time he had used any physical force to reprimand her for her actions, and needless to say, she never picked up a woodchip again after that. As she grew older and got into even more trouble with drinking, drugs, and the like, she wondered why he had never tried disciplining her in such a way again. The most punishment she had ever received for any of those related incidents was a yell or "a talk" from him about how she was being "disrespectful," "ungrateful," or even "insolent," a word that reinforced her father's Britishness unlike any other (she actually had to go look it up in a dictionary). Maybe it was because he felt spankings were for children and that she was too old for them, that she should no longer need any physical reinforcement to remind her _not _to break the law. Or maybe, mostly likely, it was because he had been turning a blind eye to her issues, hoping that they would go away with a simple word, rather than willing to accept the fact that she was turning into her mother and needed more help than he could give her.

But, apparently, and rightly so, he thought today was ideal for a physical rebuke. This time, rather than a spanking, it was a smack on the cheek, which was a far better mark of shame, as everyone could see it. She could feel the nerves in her face pounding like a heartbeat as she looked into her father's angry eyes. It was unnerving to see her own brown eyes looking back at her like that.

She had been curled up in a fetal position, bawling her eyes out for who knows how long, when she heard the door open, and she let out a gasp. But, rather than see who was entering, she did what she thought was smarter thing and pulled her sweatshirt over her head. When the door closed, footsteps could be heard coming toward her, but she kept her head down, whimpering in fear, before powerful hands pulled her into an upright position and a smack louder and more painful than a bomb greeted her cheek.

Her father's depression had turned to complete rage. In the past four days since Bridget had left, Andrew had done nothing but lie in bed and weep. Not eating or sleeping, just weeping. Juliet had even climbed into bed with him a few times, like she had as a little girl during a scary thunderstorm, holding his hand, trying to comfort him, but his heart was too broken for her to fix. Maybe she had bought the whole "You and me against the world" thing for an hour or two after they had arrived in the Hamptons that night, but that whole notion was certainly gone now.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Andrew's emotionality was unlike anything she had ever seen. Never in a million years would she have thought he would let her see him cry. She had always been taught that men didn't show their emotions because it wasn't the "manly" thing to do. One of her teachers back in middle school had even told the class that the whole concept of male emotionality was nothing more than a façade created by daytime soap operas to appeal to women. Well, this teacher had obviously never met Andrew Martin.

Juliet didn't hold any of her father's emotions against him, though. She couldn't, not after what he had been through. He was acting as any man in his situation would. A man who had been shot, lied to, cheated on, held hostage, robbed of money, and disappointed by all the people whom he trusted with the world. No, it would be a crime to hold a grudge against him for his lack of attention toward her these past few days. He had every right to cry and slap.

Juliet knew that the smack burning a hole in her cheek wasn't just for her, but for all of them. For Bridget. For Catherine. For Siobhan. For Henry. Even for Olivia, his shady, lesbian, _whore_ business partner. But, of course, Juliet felt like she bore most of the blame, because, not only could she have prevented the fight with Ellie if she had just controlled her temper, but also, more importantly, because she had failed him more than any of the others had. She had been his last bright spot, his last source of happiness after all the others had left him in misery. But, now, she, too, with this incident, had violated what little trust he had left in anyone and was no better than the rest. He was done with her and that was that. Of course, she would be able to come eventually, but Andrew would never show her any love again. No kisses, no hugs, no terms of endearment, probably even no acknowledgement of her presence at all.

He stepped back slowly, never taking his eyes off her, and folded his arms, as though he were afraid that if he didn't move away from her or conceal his hands, he might hit her again. When his back reached the door, Juliet could see more tears in his angry eyes, which was shocking, because she didn't think he had anymore tears left to cry.

"You're staying here for a week," he said evenly, but loudly, probably loud enough for the people in the hallway to hear, which was embarrassing, not that it wasn't already. His lips quivered slightly, before he turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

She sighed heavily, trying to catch her breath, but failing miserably for a few seconds. He hadn't even waited for a response, not that she had expected him to. Any at rate, she didn't have one. There was no explanation for her actions, other than her own stupidity and lack of self-control. She crumpled back into her fetal position and let her head fall onto the pillow, which wasn't much of a pillow, just a hard, leathery lump, like the one that she couldn't get out of her throat.

She put both hands over her burning cheek, ignoring the tears. Her father's depression wasn't the only one that had turned into rage. Hers had, too. She had spent the last few days trying to feel happy, trying to get Bridget and everyone else out of her mind, trying to let go of the fantasy life that she knew she would never have and the mother who never was and never would be hers. She had tried taking walks on the beach, watching senseless comedy shows and movies, even collecting seashells, which she hadn't done since she was nine. She did whatever she could do to get her mind away from it all. But, none of that helped, and instead of reaching out to someone for help like a normal person would, she had hurt Ellie and thereby ruined her own future. She would most definitely be expelled from school, receiving "Incompletes" in her classes for the semester and having to retake them at another school, setting her behind in graduating. This incident would be on her permanent record, impacting her ability to be accepted to colleges and universities and probably even her ability to get a minimum-wage job. She would probably have to do community service with a bunch of other criminals, and Andrew would probably be sued by Ellie's parents, losing more money that he didn't deserve to lose.

_Ellie…. _The thought of her made Juliet sick.

She had hurt Ellie! She couldn't believe it. She had actually drawn blood and sent another girl to the hospital. She was so ashamed. How could she have let herself do something so horrible? Why did she lose control like that? Sure, Ellie wasn't a nice girl in the slightest. She picked on lots of other kids to stifle her own insecurities, but she didn't deserve to be hurt like that. Now, the kids at school were going to be gossiping about their fight, and Ellie would probably be laughed at and ridiculed. And Tessa and the others were probably going to be harassed as well. Rumors would be spread throughout the entire city about what an awful person Juliet Martin was. But, she wouldn't be able to counter them with anything, because they wouldn't be just rumors. They would be true.

She could have blamed her actions on Bridget for making up a horrendous lie in the first place, for making Juliet reach for something that wasn't real, giving her more happiness than anything else in her life ever had, but then snatching it away. She could have blamed them on Siobhan for being evil and manipulative and enticing Bridget to come to New York. She could have blamed then on Catherine for driving Andrew into Siobhan's arms, or even for seducing him in the first place, commencing Juliet's life and thus her misery. But, in the end, she knew the truth:

_This_ was no one's fault but her own.

&&The Sheridan Apartment &&

By the time London had gotten back from the police station, her cell phone was going off just as much as her mouth was. She had been receiving texts by the millions since the officers had given her phone back, all of them from the students at her school asking about the details of the fight and the aftermath at the police station.

Greer and Bridget were in the kitchen making dinner for the three of them. Bridget had been in charge of chopping the vegetables: the zucchini, the carrots, and the celery, while Greer was cooking the steak, which, Bridget wanted to admit, but couldn't out of courtesy, was making her nauseous.

"Clove's such a bitch. Lindsay just said she's already told the whole school that Mr. Martin beat the crap out of her in front of the whole police station." she said as she texted away at the dining room table, thumbs moving at ten miles an hour. She looked up and said in clarification, "Juliet, I mean," as if no one knew who she was talking about.

Bridget's heart almost stopped beating. She turned around to look at London in shock. "_What_? Andrew _beat _her?"

"No," London responded with contempt, evidently aimed at the girl named Clove. "He didn't _beat_ her. He just gave her a slap on the cheek, and it wasn't in front of the whole police station. It was in an enclosed room. Nobody saw it. Clove is just a bitch. But, I did hear him say that he was going to make her stay there for a week, which is a _really _long time. Isn't she only supposed to stay there for, like, a day or so and then get out? So, yeah…. He's _pissed as hell._"

She pulled her laptop plastered with Taylor Lautner pictures (about half were of him in character as Jacob Black, the other half were of him with his shirt off) out of her backpack and placed it on the dining room table, no doubt to check Facebook to see what all the kids at school were saying about the incident.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed, clearly frustrated after having scrolled down the page for barely thirty seconds. "Everybody's talking about it!" She began typing like mad, evidently to comment on everyone else's statuses to tell them what really happened.

"Well…." Bridget wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure what. She just felt horrible. All of this was her fault. How could she make excuses for either Andrew or Juliet when she was the reason for their actions? She had worked so hard to help them mend their relationship, and it had worked. Now, they were back in the same spot they were before Bridget had come into their lives. She had helped them, just to ruin them all over again, and there was nothing she could do to change it. Now, Juliet was probably just as miserable as she was and probably blamed her for what she had done. All the love that Bridget had shown her had been for absolutely nothing. She only wished she could tell Juliet that she was sorry for not being the mother she had wanted and deserved. After all, deep down, Juliet had a heart of gold. She wasn't a bad girl at all. She just needed to be understood and Catherine had never been there to do that.

It would never get a chance to happen now. No one would ever understand her. She would go back to drugs to ease her misery, but that would just make her life worse. Bridget had seen so much of herself in Juliet, and that was, in part, how she had grown to her love her. Because they were so alike, Bridget knew that she had to help her, to save her, to prevent her from going down the horrible path that she herself had. In doing so, Bridget felt like she finally had a daughter of her own.

But it was all in vain and a complete lie.

"They're going through a lot," she finally said, going back to chopping celery. Maybe it would distract her from her feelings of guilt and shame. And nausea. She wished she were chopping onions instead. Then, she would have had an excuse for the tears building up in her eyes.

"None of which is your fault." Greer finally spoke up after what felt like thirty minutes of London's rambling. She looked different wearing a cooking apron and her hair tied back in a ponytail, a real cafeteria worker than a rich woman in diamonds. She placed a lid over the steak, much to Bridget's delight, as it would get rid of the smell. Her nausea subsided, but her stomach was still filled with guilt and sadness and whatever other emotions she was feeling. There had been so many flooding through her these past few days that she didn't know which was which.

Bridget responded to Greer's comment by throwing some chopped celery into the pot on the back burner of the stove. She couldn't say "I know" or anything of an affirmative nature if she didn't believe it to be true, because she was well aware that her friend had been addressing the question to her. It certainly wasn't London's fault.

"_Bridget_." Greer was staring at her now, incredulously. "It's not your fault. Juliet had no business doing what she did. She could have very easily controlled her emotions. You know she could have. It had nothing to do with you."

She wasn't so sure. She just grabbed a zucchini and started chopping.

"Yeah. I hate to say it, but she knew what she was doing," London affirmed as she took a break from typing to join them in the kitchen , but only to snatch a Dr. Pepper from the refrigerator. Apparently, it had been upside-down because when she tried opening it, it fizzed over in her hands and onto the tiled floor.

"Oopsy," she said, proceeding to suck the liquid off the top of the can.

"Clean that up, please." Greer had been cleaning up London's messes all day, as the teenager had left at least five water glasses lying around, most of them tipped over and spilled, and so it was no surprised that her mother was unhappy about this one. "You need to more conscious of your messes, young lady."

"I'll help you," Bridget offered, noticing London's glare. She put down the knife and grabbed the paper towels off the counter and bent down to wipe the tiles, when she suddenly felt very hot and dizzy.

The nausea was back and this time, it wasn't going anywhere. In fact, it was actually manifesting into vomit, moving up her chest. She jumped up and ran to the toilet, puking up the chicken Caesar salad that she had eaten for lunch. When she lifted her head, she was trembling and covered in sweat.

_Great. _A stomach virus was just the thing she needed right now.


	4. Much Ado About Everything

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! It looks like I was able to get enough computer time in Belgium after all. The village of Ath is very nice. I'm interning at an elementary school here, so we have weekends off and shortened Wednesdays. Anyway, here is Chapter 4. I really hope you guys find it satisfying to your Ringer expectations. I want it to be as realistic as possible and everything that the writers themselves wanted, but of course, I can't know what they'd have wanted because the show was never finished. Please remember to review. Oh and forgive me for any misspellings or grammatical errors. I'm having to write this story and everything else on an iPad using the stupid built in touch screen keyboard because I wasn't able to bring a real computer with me to Belgium. It sucks. Anyway, enjoy.

Love from May.

**Chapter Four: Much Ado About Everything**

Wednesday.

"I got five kids and they're all under ten." A huge woman smelling of cigarettes had not stopped chatting since she sat down. Siobhan could hardly bare it. Of course, she had smoked before she got pregnant with Portia and Regan, but she had at most four cigarettes a day, not four packs, as this woman was clearly used to having. Siobhan could hardly stand the smell. She was glad that her twin girls would be in the hospital for another week before coming home, because she didn't want them in their fragile conditions to be around a woman as trashy as this.

The woman had talked nonstop about her reasons for being in the shelter that Siobhan herself now occupied. It was an old building on Seventh Avenue, beyond all of the what gave the Avenue the nickname "Fashion Avenue." This was the junky side of the normally beautiful street, where all the important things that Siobhan should have been involved in, ended. The house was set up a few years back as a women and children's shelter by a group of Christian missionaries, and it was definitely not the fanciest building in the world.

That was partially why Siobhan hated it so much. The entire building smelled of mildew and urine, as though no one had taken care of it properly in years. How would anyone expect a homeless woman to go here if it smelled so horrible? Combine that with most of the occupants being chain smokers, and the whole thing made Siobhan want to just take off running. But, she knew she couldn't do that again. Her babies were in the hospital, sick, and she had no money whatsoever after Henry had emptied her bank account.

Her heart tightened when she thought of Henry and how much she loved him, how they were on their way to start a new life together, just the two of them and their two sets of adorable twins. It was going to be the perfect life, the life Siobhan had always dreamed of having, the life she deserved after losing Sean. But, after she lied to Henry, telling him that he was indeed the father of her baby girls when he knew he was not, he had taken all of her money and kicked her out of his house. She had no choice to take refuge in a shelter, a place where no one would reject her. She hadn't used her real name, of course, but rather Chloe Augustin, to make sure no one would get suspicious and come looking for her, especially since there was already a "Siobhan Martin" in town.

_Ugh, _Bridget. The thought of her sister made her want to puke even harder. Her fists clenched in absolute fury. How was it that Bridget, a murderer, a whore, and a druggie, was able to get _her _life and make it better than _she _could? She was supposed to have died in Siobhan's place, murdered by Andrew, because Bridget was a screw-up, an evil bitch. She had killed Sean and would no doubt be stupid enough to kill her own children if she were a mother (like she could ever even get that far; the drugs in her system would probably kill the baby before it even had a chance to attach to the uterus). No, Siobhan would not give up on her plan to avenge her son, and that meant she still had to find a way to wipe Bridget off the face of the earth and somehow get her old life back, as a final slap in Bridget's face.

The money and luxury, that is. Now way in hell did she give a crap about Andrew. As far as she was concerned, he could die, too. In fact, it would be a marvelous double wammy to kill them both. There was no doubt that Bridget and Andrew were madly in love with each other, so much, in fact, that once Siobhan's adultery with Henry came to light, Andrew would probably choose to stay with Bridget. Of course, Siobhan had loved Andrew when they first met, back when he was a lonely man with a lacadaizical alcoholic bitch for a wife who paid attention to nothing and no one except herself, but that feeling of love died about a year into their marriage. In fact, she couldn't even remember what she had loved about him. His Welsh accent, maybe? Oh well, whatever it was was long gone. From then on, Siobhan had stayed with Andrew for his money, which she could not live without.

She had to find a way to get it, but she was at a loss as to how. She couldn't just walk into their penthouse apartment and become herself again. There were sure signs that he would notice. Her weight would be the first thing, as pregnancy had caused her to gain some and it had not left quite yet. He would recognize that she was noticably heavier than Bridget. Then, the fact that she had two twin babies in her arms. How was she to explain that without him going bizerk and throwing her out on the spot? Even if the twins were his, which they were, as during the time of their conception she had only been sleeping with Henry,, that did not mean that he would take her back at all, especially not after he had been forced into staying with Catherine under the circumstances of Juliet's birth. He wouldn't do the same thing again. He could easily just file for divorce, take the girls, and leave her with nothing. There would be the matter of two Siobhans being in the same home, and then, of course, Bridget would no doubt spill everything, which would mean Siobhan would have to tell her side of the story to both of them. No, there was no going to back to Andrew, which was was a relief, really. She couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life with a man that she didn't love. She had to think of a way to get the money without Andrew knowing. She had done it once, of course, but she had _had _money to start with, then. Not this time, and as such, she couldn't do so much as hire a hitman to get rid of her husband and sister. Hitmen don't do anything without payment or some type of reward, after all.

As such, Siobhan knew that she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She sighed in both dispair and disgust as the woman next to her stopped talking about her lazy family for a moment to light another cigarette. _Are people even allowed to smoke in here? _But, enough was enough. She had to get away from this woman before sh gave her cancer, and then who would be there to take care of her babies? She didn't even bother to excuse herself (as if a woman so disgusting were worthy of any curtesy) before rushing out the door for some fresh air, which she should have thought about doing a long time ago. Now, her clothes reaked and she would have to take another shower today. But, a walk would do her good.

Of course, walks in New York aren't walks without the bustling noisy cars and bikers who practically bowl you over every chance they get, as though they make it a game to see who can crash into the most pedestrians. Once, Siobhan witnessed a teenage biker ramming into a walnut vendor and knocking the cart over. Now, that was amusing. Today, there was just as much noise as usual, but Siobhan was able to tune it out because of her preoccupied mind. She didn't even notice that she barely missed falling into a pothole on the sidewalk.

What could she do to get her money back? If only she could do that, then everything _would_ be perfect, not only because she and her daughters would have enough money to live off forever, but also because having the money meant that Andrew and Bridget had none of it. But, there was no way for that to happen in the current state that she was in.

_In the current state I'm in, nothing will work, _she thought as she took a break in front of a used bookstore, which was selling a very battered copy of _Sense and _Sensibility, the worst book she had ever read. Then, she realized something: in her current state, Henry was out of sight, and if she wanted anything to be right, she first had to get Henry to want her again. Somehow, she had to make him fall in love with her, want her back. Then, she would at least be halfway happy. Then, when he was on her side again, she could find a way to get the money. Couldn't he re-invest in Andrew's business? He had done it before. That was the only reason he had money for anything. Besides, she had forgiven him for lying to her about killing Tyler Barrett one of Andrew's employees. Couldn't he eventually forgive her for lying? Even if she did so, she was still nowhere as bad as Bridget was. Henry had to see that.

And if that didn't work, then she didn't know what she would do.

Gramercy Park, New York, New York&

This was probably the fourth glass of Scotch that Henry had drunk in the past hour, but he couldn't care less. In fact, there was no telling how many glasses he had had. He wasn't in the mood for counting, much less in the mood for thinking, because thinking had gotten him in too many situations that he would rather not be in. That is, if he could call his actions in the past few months "thinking," which really, they weren't. He had spent months harboring, kissing, and sleeping with a lying sociopath, just a few months after his wife had been murdered _by said woman. _Of course, she had tried to blame her sister for everything.

"_Remember what she did to Gemma?"_ Damnit! He couldn't get her voice out of his head. Siobhan was the most evil woman that Henry had ever known, and he had hung on her every word, doing whatever it was she wanted. How could he have been so stupid?

He took another swig of Scotch. She had had the nerve to put _everything _on Bridget and Andrew, when she had never looked at herself. Although, frankly, Henry hadn't looked at himself very clearly, either, at least not until recently, but now he couldn't believe all of the things that he had done. He had cheated on his wife, who loved him more than the sun, and had taken as much part in stealing as Andrew had. He had evern murdered a man for Siobhan. It was as if his life had begun to go downhill as soon as he had met her, the nasty woman hiding behind an innocent, meek facade. Well, maybe she wasn't meek, but she sure did enjoy acting like she was the biggest victim on the planet.

Henry wasn't sure what to do now. He hadn't even told Bridget or Andrew about Siobhan's twin daughters. When Bridget had barged into his house almost a week ago, that was a piece of information that he had deliberately avoided, because, for one thing, he wasn't sure if it really mattered. Bridget wasn't there to hear about her sister's children, but to know why she had faked her death. Plus, the babies weren't his, but there was no telling if they were Andrew's, either. Siobhan had also been screwing Tyler Barrett, whom Henry had accidently killed when trying to retrieve a flashdrive that had evidence for Andrew's Ponzi scheme, and probably even John Delario, Siobhan's accomplice and Gemma's kidnapper. She had ordered him to kidnap Gemma, and he eventually killed her, leaving Henry a widower and his sons without a mother. Now, after a bitter custody battle, Henry's twin sons were now in the primary care (downgraded from "full costudy" only because of Henry's constant petitioning) of their maternal grandfather, Tim Arbogast, a wealthy New York businessman who could probably con Oprah out of her money if he wanted to. He was probably just as much of a criminal as Andrew was, but as a much older man with more experience, he was no doubt more keen to cover his tracks.

Henry swallowed the last bit of Scotch in his glass and turned to his computer. He had been working on his book for almost two years now and was not getting anywhere with it. Gemma was right. She had always said that he should have gotten a steady job and worked on his book on the side, as a hobby, since it wasn't getting him anywhere so far. Maybe he should have listened to her more often. If he had, maybe he wouldn't be in the position that he was in now.

Of course, he wouldn't be.

He put his fingers on the keyboard and started typing again, stopping midsentence, as the effects of the alcohol were beginning to take their toll. He knew he shouldn't be getting drunk with two small kids, but they wouldn't be home for another few hours, as Annafried was scheduled to pick them up from preschool around four, and last time he checked, it was only one o'clock. Then again, he wasn't sure how long ago that had been.

His head was aching now. Maybe he'd had a little too much, but he needed something to get his mind off everything. Henry closed his eyes and pressed his index fingers against his temple.

_Looks like the book's gonna be put off another day,_he thought miserably. He knew he would never finish it.

Instead, he decided that it would be best for him to take a nap to wear off the alcohol. He turned off the computer and headed upstairs, holding onto the rail rather tightly, before he could hear the faint sound of the doorbell ringing. How drunk was he that he could barely hear the doorbell? Certainly, he wasn't _that_ drunk, at least he'd heard it, but there was no telling how long it had rung before that.

He ran a hand through his hair and straightened his close. He needed to look somewhat presentable, after all, especially with Tim Arbogast hovering over him as much as he was. Suddenly, his body filled with dread. What if it was Arbogast? He _really _regretted drinking now. If Arbogast were to catch him drunk, that would be all the proof he needed to file for full custody of the kids again. It was literally the last thing Henry needed and probably the only thing that could make his life worse.

Unless, of course, Siobhan were to come waltzing back into his life, trying to seduce him. That would definitely be something to make his life worse. Honestly, if he so much as looked at her again, he would kill her, or at least chase her away with a _broomstick_. She had ruined everyone's life, and it would be the most arrogant thing on the planet for her to think that she could just bat her eyes at him and everything would be ok.

What if it was her? His heart sank. He took a quick look around the room and noticed that there was no broomstick nearby. Just an umbrella, and he wasn't in a state to go looking for anything else. Yeah, that would show her he meant it when he told her to leave. It might have been stupid, and she might even laugh upon seeing him with it, but he didn't care. She had hurt him, and he would do what he could to make her stay away.

At the same time, though, he could almost imagine her as one of those stalkers from horror movies, never taking any hints, leaving creepy messages and gifts of severed heads on his doorstep..

"Yo_u belong with me, Henry. I won't stop until we're together." _Oh yeah, and saying a corny line like that. He could almost see her doing that. It was stupid, but at the same time, scary to ponder. If she were that desperate, there was no predicting what she would do.

However, when he finally opened the door, it was not his malicious father-in-law or his evil ex-girlfriend, but rather the third most unwanted person in his life, his lawyer Margaret Dawson. She was one of his lawyers, anyway both paid for by the state, of course; no way could he have hired them himself). She gave him most of his information and told him what to say in court, while the other one handled mostly everything with the judges and prosecutors. Anyhow, if she was standing on his doorstep, that was never good, which was the reason why he considered her the third most unwanted person in his life.

She looked at him sourly, obviously noticing his drunken state, but she ignored it. At least, she ignored it at first. She began the conversation with her reason for standing there:

"Henry, the judge reversed his decision to give you partial custody of the kids. Arbogast has them permanently again."

It took a moment for the words to register in Henry's brain. Sure, he was drunk, but he most definitely understood the words that had just come from Margaret's mouth.

"What?" He could have died right there. "How?"

The _how _wasn't necessary. Of course, Tim _would_ be crooked enough to pay the judge to overturn the new ruling, and the judge would no doubt be just as crooked to accept anything so illegal. _Or_ maybe Tim's lawyers had done it for him. He had many, of course, just like OJ Simpson had, and _he _had certainly gotten his way. At least, for a decade, anyway. Furthermore, Tim was acquainted with well over half of the people who worked at the courthouse, so he could have done a number of things. It was all too much for Henry to wrap his head around just yet. Instead, his inibriated brain kept him blurting out question before he could stop himself.

"Why didn't you call me right when you got the news? Why waste time coming over here? I could have done something by now." No, he couldn't have. He couldn't have done anything that a judge would buy in the state of intoxication that he was in now. Not too drunk, but just enough to notice symptoms.

"I _did _call you," Margaret retorted, looking at Henry quizzically, as though he were a dirty dog needing to be cleaned. "Four times. You never picked up." She raised her thick brown eye brows. "Now, I see why."

"Oh, yeah," he said, scratching his head, the way he always did when he was confused or embarrassed. It was an obvious sign, but it was a habit. He couldn't help it, but he couldn't admit to being drunk, no matter how obvious it was, so he responded, "my phone was on silent."

He couldn't remember if he had put it on silent or if he had accidently let it fall under the table when he was preoccupied with drinking his Scotch. If the latter were the case, he wouldn't have heard it ring anyway, because it had probably shattered. Either way, though, he probably wouldn't have picked it up.

"Well, I'm really sorry to break it to you like this," she said grimly. "We're working on it. We could try another petition but..."

He knew what she was thinking. The judge wouldn't listen to another petition, not after having been manipulated by one of the wealthiest men in New York state. There was no way he would accept anything from a practically unemployed writer.

She obviously didn't know what else to say, so she tried to give him a somewhat reassuring smile and a pat on the shoulder, a gesture that said "It's ok. Everything will work out," when it really wouldn't.

Henry was at a loss for words now. All he could think about was racing over to Tim's office and putting a dent in his skull. It seemed like the only solution to anything at the moment.

The Sheridan's Apartment&

Bridget had been lying on the couch all day, trying her hardest to ignore the nausea. She had only puked once so far today, though, and it had been early in the morning, so hopefully that meant she would be getting over it soon.

She only hoped it wasn't something that she would be able to give to Greer or London. She didn't need to ruin anyone else's life. In between and during restless amounts of sleep, Bridget could only think of Andrew and Juliet and how horrible their lives were now. Juliet in juvenile detention, and Andrew probably wasn't any better off.

Or maybe he was. All the women he had ever loved and trusted had lied to him. Maybe now he just decided to throw in the towel altogether and live life as a bachelor. Maybe. She only wished he didn't have to. He deserved a wife who loved him and treated him as an equal, not as someone whom she could push around and steal money from. Bridget thought she could have been that woman for him. She truly loved him more than she ever thought was possible to love anyone. It was a feeling that she had never experienced with anyone else. Before Andrew, she had never expected to settle down and marry. She had been a prostitute, after all, and sex four times a night was the closest thing to marriage they ever got. Love was synonymous with business, which meant a man didn't love you unless you did the deed with him. Same with being a stripper. Men only loved you when they were given a lap dance or a private. That was love to a woman of her status: purely impulsive lust. Nothing more.

But, with Andrew, it was different. He had genuinely loved her. Her heart fluttered like a butterfly as she thought of his warm smile, the way he held her hand, and the fact that he was literally willing to die for her. Everything about him had radiated with care and respect. Everything about him showed it. Now, that was true love. He never even asked openly for sex, which was quite a shock to Bridget. She had always thought that sex was the one thing that never left a man's mind. But, then again, Andrew was not every man she knew. Sure he lied and cheated, but hadn't they all? He had taken a great leap of faith in admitting the Ponzi scheme to her. She remembered the look on his face when he had confessed. It had been one of complete remorse and guilt, because he knew that by stealing money he had hurt her and he was afraid of losing her, and it was all because she was w changed woman. That particular incident was one of the many times where Bridget had noticed the difference in the feelings he must have had for her and those he must have had for Siobhan:

_"A few months ago when you came to me about it, I didn't think I could trust you, but now..."_

The pause was the biggest giveaway: Andrew could trust her now because she was nothing like Siobhan. She wasn't threatening to tell the police and leave him in jail. She would stick by him no matter what and could even help him get through it, because he knew that she genuinely loved him.

But that was something Bridget just could not get over. _She _had stuck by him in his _darkest_ hour, after realizing that he was no threat to her. So, why couldn't _he _have stuck by her? She didn't understand. She knew he still loved her, so why couldn't he just accept her for her?

She was so frustrated about the whole thing that she had almost forgotten she was sick. And that was probably the issue. She had been so stressed lately that she hadn't been taking care of herself. She needed to calm down and rest.

She grabbed the remote off the coffee table, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and poked her arm out the side to surf the channels. Greer and Jeff had a huge flat screen with over six hundred channels (many in foreign languages). If she couldn't find anything of interest, she could settle for a Korean soap opera to at least drown out the emotions in her head.

Finally, she found an episode of Dog Whisperer on National Geographic. Cesar was had been given the task of training an obnoxious bulldog with behavior issues around seniors and who was apparently afraid to climb stairs. Ok. Great. Something dumb enough to doze off to without melting her brain in the process, as any show on E! certainly would.a

Bridget was about to close her eyes and try to nap when Cesar went on commercial break.

"Your body can tell you're pregnant before you can." It was an add for a pregnancy test.

Her body froze under the blanket.

_No, _she thought sharply, trying her hardest to dismiss the idea from her mind. _I've got a stomach virus. That's all it is. Nothing else. _

But, she wasn't running a fever, as she did with most viruses. Then again, fevers weren't absolute for a virus. It didn't mean anything. She took a deep breath and settled into the blankets again. Check all the signs. That's what she had to do.

The vomiting. Her first sign of nausea had been the day before when she had arrived home from job hunting, when the cab had stopped suddenly. That was normal, too. While Bridget never got motion sickness when vehicles were moving, it was a different matter when they came to rough stops. The smell of steak had also been a trigger, but that also didn't be necessarily prove anything. She couldn't handle a lot of smells: old fish, cigarettes, any tobacco product, really, even certain perfumes made her sick. Plus, all of the nausea could have been enhanced by a virus that had been making its nest inside her for a while. It didn't prove anything.

Next, her period. Well, that was a dead end as well. She had been irregular her whole life. She could go two months without one and it would be normal for her. The doctors had done countless tests over the years to make sure, but everything had checked out. Plus, with the new pills she was taking...

Her hands shook with more force than she ever could have imagined them having. Her pills! Her birth control pills! This was the first time she had thought about them in so long. When was the last time she had taken them? Weeks ago? Months ago? Had she even brought them with her when she was forced to stay with Greer? She had been so stressed over the last two months that she had completely forgotten about them! How could she have been so stupid and careless? She could be conscientious enough not to drink alcohol, but not enough to remember to take her stupid birth control pills.

But, she knew how that was possible. Ever since Andrew was shot, so much had happened. Catherine had held the whole family hostage. The vow renewals had to be prepared. She had had to make the excruciating decision to come clean about her true identity, and so much more. So much had been hanging over her head that she had every reason _not _to remember to take her pills. And of course she and Andrew had been intimate during that time. Once he had recovered from the shooting, sex had become a normal, natural thing for them, as it would be with any husband and wife who were as in love as they had been.

Bridget bolted up from the couch with more force than she thought she had had in her. Where were her pills? She had to see how many days she had missed. But, she didn't know where to look first. She couldn't remember where she had put them. She found her purse and rummaged through it, dumping all its contents onto the floor. There was nothing but some cash Greer had loaned her for bus fair and whatever little things she might need. A hair clip. A pen.

No pills.

She opened all the pockets. Nothing, not even lent.

She raced into the guest bedroom where her suitcase was. Throwing it open, she emptied it of the last of her clothes that she had yet to put in the drawers. No pills. She opened the pockets.

Again, nothing.

She must have left them either in the drawer of Siobhan's dresser or in the medicine cabinet in Andrew's bathroom! More fear flooded her at the thought of Andrew finding them? What would he think? Would he get suspicious and come over to ask if she was pregnant? What if he accused her of conceiving on purpose so that he would stay with her? Now, that was the last thing Bridget wanted: for Andrew to think she had been scamming him for something far more precious than her identity.

Then, she realized: why was she wasting so much time looking for the pills when she could be doing the more obvious thing, which was taking the actual pregnancy test? Maybe it was because she feared the results. Well, yeah, of course she did. But, in reality, she knew that if she was pregnant, avoiding the test was not going to help anything. The sooner she knew, the sooner she could figure out how to break the news to Andrew.

Running back into the living room, she grabbed the cash Greer had left her and ran to the nearest pharmacy, all thoughts of nausea gone from her mind.

An hour later, she was leaning over the toilet, vomiting, crying loudly, her tears blurring her vision. Once the vomiting had subsided, she wiped her tears away to find herself staring at the four sticks in her hand that just wouldn't go away no matter how much she prayed. They all had the same image staring back at her: two lines forming a positive sign. She couldn't believe it.

She was actually pregnant.


	5. Who Did You Take The Bullet For?

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hi guys! How is everybody? Please remember to review this chapter! I need more reviews. I'm noticing that I'm getting lots of story alerts and stuff, but no one is telling me why this story is on their alerts. Please let me know why. It's how I improve. I hope you like it. I'm trying to do the best I can. Again, I'm writing on an iPad, so bear with me.

Thank you,

Love,

May

**Chapter Five: Who Did You Take The Bullet For?**

Friday.

It was probably the most frustrating thing in the world. Henry had spent the whole night sleeping in his neighbor's 2002 Honda Civic, across the street from Tim Arbogast's huge mansion of a house. If he was going to confront him, he couldn't make it obvious, so he had asked his neighbor to trade cars for the night, saying that he was going on a trip and needed something with good mileage, which wasn't a lie. Tim _did _live on the outskirts of town. The _very _nice outskirts, that is. Every yard was perfectly cut, there was not a spec of garbage on the streets, which was miraculous to Henry, as he couldn't walk two inches in the city without stepping on crap. The houses were beyond huge. Tim's house literally looked like the White House, with its huge columns, pearly white paint, and huge green lawn. There was no gate, though, which was a bit odd. A man with as much wealth as Tim would surely want one, if not for security reasons, then for show. Gemma had once said that her father had been interested at one point in running for President. It was a good thing for him he hadn't, because Henry would have been the first person to carry out his assassination.

Where could he be? Why hadn't he left for work yet? Judging by the car's clock, it was nearly ten in the morning. A good businessman would have been out of the house by seven at the latest. Then again, what did Henry know about business? Tim obviously knew what he was doing. Henry hadn't wanted him to actually leave the house. He just needed to catch him coming out of it so he could confront him, and maybe barge in the front door and turn his home office upside-down to find evidence that he had paid the judge. There was no guarantee that any evidence would be there, but his house was a far more likely place than his work office, as anyone could barge in there and find anything. That was Andrew's mistake in hiding his evidence. He should have moved all the incriminating stuff to his home computer rather than the one at Martin/Charles. Or maybe that wouldn't have helped at all. Siobhan would have found out either way.

Siobhan. His grip tightened on the steering wheel. He couldn't believe that she had actually had the nerve to walk into his life again. She actually had showed up on his doorstep on Wednesday evening, after he had gone to the courthouse to try to talk to the judge, who was conveniently absent. Huh. Anyhow, by the time Henry had returned to his brownstone, Siobhan was waiting for him on the front porch, giving him what possibly were the biggest puppy dog-like eyes in the world, not to mention a tremendous amount of sobbing and, of course, a guilt trip that had Henry rethinking what he had done (she wouldn't have been Siobhan if she hadn't tried to make him feel sorry for making her children homeless, her words, not his).

But, no, he knew that he could not give into her whining and begging, not even her apologies or her crummy attempts at seduction. Not this time. There was no way he was giving her a second chance. She had already had many, after all, and even a weasel could tell that she would keep on being her wicked self. Henry was not going to be tricked and manipulated by her cold heart again.

But, that wouldn't stop him from turning the tables on her. While she had been rambling about how much she wanted to be with him, he had thought of an idea. It might have been an awful idea, but Siobhan deserved it. She deserved it good.

The plan began formulating when she had confessed everything at his doorstep. About how the girls were actually Andrew's, as she swore that she had not been sleeping with anyone else during the time Portia and Regan (she had gone with those stupid names after all) had been conceived. He didn't know if he believed that or not, but he would keep it in mind. The biggest slap in Henry's face was the part about how she needed to get Andrew's money. She had begged Henry to give her what he had taken. If he wasn't going to take her back, the least he could do was return the money for the girls, because she couldn't go back to live with Andrew. He could have her whore of a sister, she had spat. It was fine with her. They were criminals. They deserved each other, she had said. Blah, blah, blah.

She was the same Siobhan. Living in a homeless shelter for almost a week hadn't changed her an inch, not that he thought it would, of course. She was still blaming the world for her problems and never looking at herself.

But, that was another matter entirely. If she wanted him to get money out of Andrew, he would help her do it.

Sure, he would...

He kept his eyes on Tim's White House. His children were the main priority now. He had to confront his bastard father- in-law before he dealt with her.

Twenty minutes later, Henry finally got a break. Tim appeared, strutting out the door in his suit and tie, as though the rest of the world were beneath him, and in his world, it was. Henry started the engine with the speed of a Japanese monorail and screeched the car to a halt in front of Tim's driveway. He had to make sure President Asshole didn't have a way to escape.

"You son of a bitch!" Henry shouted as he jumped out of the car, slamming the door so hard that it probably would have fallen off if he had slammed it any harder. He didn't care how loud he was talking. The neighbors could hear all about Tim if they wanted.

Unlike the last time he had come barging onto Tim's immaculately, annoyingly green lawn, in which Tim had protested by yelling about how Henry wasn't supposed to be there, this time he was calm. He had obviously been anticipating Henry's arrival, because instead of yelling at him to get off his property or even making some excuse about needing to get to work, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

"How could you be so heartless?" Henry continued to shout as Tim just stood there, almost in a nonchalant sort of way. He could feel his blood boiling as he looked at the emotionless man who thought he ran the world, but he couldn't care less. The police could come and drag him away if they wanted to, as long as he got to give the most hated man in his life not just a piece of his mind, but all of it. "Why couldn't you have just let me have my kids? You had no right to do this. I _didn't kill Gemma. _"

His fists were shaking madly and he couldn't control the angry tears that were slipping out of his eyes. He hadn't even cried at Gemma's funeral, which was embarrassing, especially with her father having been there. No doubt he had noticed the contrast between then and now.

But, he continued to puff on his cigarette, evidently waiting for Henry to finish his rant, when he finally spoke, blowing the putrid fumes in his former son-in-law's direction. The smoke caused Henry to let out a giant, back-lurching cough. He hated smokers with a passion already, but with this man, his feelings were increased tenfold.

"You may not have killed my little girl, but you still cheated on her, and you _did kill_ someone, and for that, you don't deserve to be a parent. The boys are much better off with me."

He took another drag. "Besides, I have money to provide for them. You've never worked a day in your life. When Gemma's insurance runs out, how are you going to live?"

He said the last sentence with pure hatred in his voice, as though he suspected that Henry had married his daughter just to get at her money, which was, in fact, _his _money. But, of course, as usual, Tim was right. Henry's stomach tightened in guilt. He _had _married Gemma for her father's money. Ever since since his sister Karla had introduced them and he had learned that her father was a millionaire, he knew that he had to marry Gemma to take part in her father's fortune. Of course, it was cruel. Of course, it was wicked, but Henry knew that as a freelance writer, his chances of making anything were slim. With Gemma's trust fund, he would never have to worry about money.

Now, after so many years, he was finally realizing just how awful he had been in doing that. Gemma had loved him, but he had used her, never loving her as a wife, or even a friend, really. He hoped that she could hear him. He didn't need to her forgive him necessarily. He just wanted her to hear his apology.

"Where _are _my kids?" He finally asked angrily, trying to clear his head of shame and get back to the matter at hand. His kids were all he had now, and they had to remain his top priority.

"At school, of course." Tim looked at him with his eyebrows raised, as though he were appalled that Henry would think he wouldn't put them in school. "A private daycare, that is. I felt like they needed some proper socialization. Their new nanny took them about an hour ago."

_Proper socialization? _Now, there was arrogance if Henry had ever seen it, in the form of Tim Arbogast standing there and insinuating that public preschools were full of low class bums, and that was definitely not the kind of school Henry had been sending them to.

"Which one?" he asked rudely, knowing that there were at least a dozen private preschools in New York City. "And how did they get there? I've been watching the house all morning. No one's left."

Tim took another puff of his cigarette and answered as expected, "Why should I tell you where they are? You can't see them anyway. As to your second question..."

He walked over to the huge lion-shaped ashtray next to the front to door of his house and deposited his cigarette butt. For a split second, Henry considered jumping him while Tim's back was turned. But, what would that do? If he were to beat him to death, then Dash and Becks would be gone from him forever. Tim then turned and walked to the driveway, gesturing passed a large tree that had been hiding the rest of it in view. It extended to the other side of the house, onto another street. Now, he felt like an idiot. He hadn't blocked the driveway after all.

It figured, of course. Tim Arbogast was prepared for everything.

"By the way," Tim continued to speak as he turned around to face Henry again, looking grim. "Remind your _girlfriend _to spend her money wisely. She may not be able to understand what it means to not have an infinite amount of money, but she'll have to learn."

_What? _Henry was confused. Siobhan didn't have _any_ money now, and how on Earth would Tim know anything about her whereabouts? Unless, he was talking about the _other _Siobhan.

"What are you talking about?" He fired back rudely. What was going on?

"Well, with Andrew being unemployed now, Siobhan can't spend his money frivolously. They have to conserve it. That's how money works. It has to keep coming in, but you would know all about that." Tim expression was very haughty now, as though he were an average who had just rigged lottery numbers. "But, then again, he _is _divorcing her, so she won't have any money soon anyway. Now, if you'll excuse me, my employees at Arbogast Funds are going to start wondering where I am."

He walked by Henry in his Presidential- like manner, but his former son-in-law barely noticed, because he was frozen in thought.

Andrew unemployed? Arbogast Funds? What the hell had Tim done? Then, it hit him. The flashdrive. The flashdrive that Henry had stolen from Tylet Barrett after he'd killed him. It contained all the evidence of the Martin/Charles Ponzi scheme, and he had given it to Tim, hoping that he would turn it into the police, exposing Andrew and sending him to prison. But apparently, that wasn't what Tim had decided to do.

"You _blackmailed _him?" Henry spun around just as Tim was opening the door to his Lamborghini. "You didn't turn him into the police. You blackmailed him with the evidence I gave you and took over his company!"

Tim looked as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course. Didnt siobhan tell you? Andrew Martin is a criminal." The words came out in a drawl. "Criminals deserve to be punished. If anything, I'm doing him a favor. He could be in jail now, you know? I thought about it, I really did, but then I realized: if he were to go to jail, then the company would be gone, and then I would be losing money. So, then I thought of a better idea, an opportunity for me to make _more _money. So, I showed him the evidence I had, he signed the company over to me, and I kept him a while, just to ease everything for him, and then I finally let him go yesterday afternoon. So I'm really doing him a favor." He leaned on the driver's side doorway. "He'll have plenty of money to live on if he chooses his cards wisely. He might have to sell some property, maybe the beach house, maybe get rid of the limo. I don't know. It also depends on how expensive his divorce is. At least he didn't have to pay for the repairs to his apartment. I was generous and took care of it. Of course, he'll probably lose it eventually, too."

_You were generously evil, _Henry thought as Tim hopped into the car. He rolled down the passenger side window as the engine started and called out, gesturing to the Civic that Henry had arrived in, "and that car, good job trying to fool me. It's definitely not the kind you can afford."

Another show of arrogance. Henry _could _afford a Civic if he wanted one. They weren't expensive cars, especially one that was ten years old. He wished with all his might that Tim would back into it, crushing his precious Lamborghini. If only the driveway hadn't extended.

He drove off, and Henry was left alone, standing on the huge lawn. Tim obviously had security cameras planted everywhere. Otherwise, he wouldn't have left someone like Henry there by himself. Unless, of course, he had wanted him to steal something. Then, he would have plenty of evidence to send him to jail, at least for a time.

But, Henry wasn't going to do that. He was just so angry at his back-stabbing father-in-law, but he didn't know what to do. Was there anything he could do? His lawyers had promised they would at least try to do something, but had made it clear that the chances of success were low, as if Henry wasn't already aware of that.

Then, he found himself thinking about Andrew. A feeling that had once been pride in putting Andrew in his place had now turned to guilt, but he wasn't sure why. Maybe because Siobhan had wronged them both, and Henry felt guilty for having a part in it. He didn't know for sure. Tim was right in that Andrew _was _a criminal, and he probably did deserve to lose his job. Of course, he did, but Henry still felt like he had to apologize, at least for everything with Siobhan, because he realized that he hadn't exactly done so yet.

He took the Civic to Andrew's apartment on Park Avenue. Or, rather, he took it as far as he could, parking it a few blocks away and walking the rest. He wasn't sure if Andrew would be there, but it was the best place to go. If he wasn't, Henry could always ask for information on where he might be.

The first thing he saw upon arrival was the huge upgrade in security. There were at least six police officers on the steps leading to the front doors of the apartment complex, all of them padding down everyone who was entering. Add a metal detector and it would have been more invasive than any airport security. He walked up the steps and waited for the officers to feel him up, which they did, much more thoroughly than anyone would have liked. Finally, when he reached the front desk, which had even more police barring his way, he noticed that there was a new clerk standing behind it, a young brunette, around thirty, wearing a dark blue blazer and a very over-the-top perm. Very ugly.. Henry was about to inquire what had happened to the other clerk, the balding man with the glasses, when he remembered with a sudden jolt to the stomach what Bridget had told him the morning she had come barging into his house: the man was dead. He had been murdered by Bodoway Macawi during the latter's search for Bridget, which, of course, was the reason for the upgrade in security and the repairs to Andrew's apartment.

The woman, Linda, the gold letters on her name tag spelled out, looked at him cheerfully, so obviously trying to pretend that the security wasn't bothering her.

"May I help you?" she spoke in a manner that made her sound like she was addressing a five-year-old trying to buy his own ice cream cone for the first time. Why was everyone so condescending nowadays?

"Yes..." Henry spoke slowly, trying to both to hide the uncomfortable feeling that the atmosphere of the place was giving and to come up with an explanation as to who he was. If he introduced himself as "Henry Butler," then Andrew would _never _let him into his house. "My name is...Michael Blake and I'm...head of a firm in Hoboken. I'm hear to see Andrew Martin about a job opportunity."

The last sentence came out very fast, but it was the first and most convincing thing that popped into his head. If Andrew needed worked, he would let the opportunity in. The problem was what he would do once he saw that it was actually Henry.

But, now Henry couldn't care. He had to redeem himself. Or at least try.

Linda dialed the number to Andrew's apartment and waited a moment for him to pick up. When he finally did so, Henry got a knot in his stomach.

"Hello? Mr. Martin? Hi. This is Linda from the front desk. There's a Michael Blake-"she looked at Henry to confirm his name; he nodded; "here from a company in Hoboken to see you about a job."

She paused as Andrew responded. "Ok. I see," she said and looked back at Henry. "He says he isn't familiar with any hedge funds in Hoboken."

_Shit. _Henry could feel the sweat coming. "That's because I just opened the firm recently, a week ago, and I'm just now recruiting employees."

Ok, that might have been a drop dead stupid answer, but what else could he say? Hopefully, Andrew would be desperate enough to buy it.

Linda relayed this information into the phone. Finally, she said, in that same cheery tone, "Ok. Just give him five minutes."

Five minutes. Five minutes to think about what to say to him. Five minutes to worry. Five minutes to decide to back out and go back to feeing guilty, to being a coward, to spending the rest of his life with a woman whom he didn't deserve and who didn't deserve him.

Or maybe he and Siobhan did deserve each other. They were both cheaters and liars and murderers, having thrown what little morals they had out the window the moment they met. If anything, they were a perfect match. Maybe he deserved to spend the rest of his miserable life with an evil bitch...

"He'll see you now." Linda's voice brought him back to Earth. It was the shortest five minutes ever. He wished it had been longer.

It was a relief and a curse. Henry needed to see Andrew, but he dreaded it. He took a deep breath, thanked Linda, and pushed his way passed the officers toward the elevator.

He fought back the urge to close his eyes when the entrance to Andrew's apartment opened. He didn't want to see the Welshman's face when he came to the doors and realized who it really was. He would surely be thrown out of the complex with a broken nose this time. The sudden smell of paint and fresh wood overwhelmed his senses. He wondered why Andrew would want to stay there with all of the construction going on. But why was he wondering? It was none of his business. He probably just wanted to stay for as long as he could before he was kicked out.

There were cardboard boxes, presumably with the supplies from Andrew's office at Martin/Charles, on the floor near the kitchen and on the counter. The ceiling in the living room had been noticeably fixed, as the wood looked newer, and there was a tarp on one of the windows, making the house look very different than before.

But, the biggest difference was that Siobhan's huge photo that had always hung on the wall opposite the elevator was nowhere in sight.

Andrew stepped out from his bedroom, dressed in his suit and tie, with the obvious intention to introduce himself to his potential employer, but froze in his tracks as soon as he noticed Henry. The expression of anger and hatred on his face was indescribable.

"So, you've come to mock me, have you?" he asked menacingly. That was the strange thing about the British, those from England and Wales. Whereas Americans had to scream and yell to sound threatening, the British could whisper and their accents were powerful enough to have the desired effect. It wasn't fair and Henry hated that about them, not to mention their frequent use of inversion. He hated that, too.

He stepped forward nervously, almost tripping over the freshly sanded floor. Damn, he was a klutz under pressure.

"Look-" he tried to say, before Andrew interrupted.

"Because so far you've gotten everything you wanted. My wife and my destruction. Or as close to it as you can get without implicating yourself." He didn't add "in a murder," but he didn't needed to. It was obvious to Henry that he had put two-and-two together because Tim would have told him where he'd gotten the flashdrive from. "It's just what you wanted, to see me crumble like this." Andrew's whole body was shaking. "I suppose I deserve it. In fact, I know I do, but still, isn't it just a little cruel of you? To come up here and make a big deal out of it? I can't believe you would show your face."

He shook his head as he stepped forward. Henry could see small cuts on his face and one on his cleft chin. Was he really that distracted?

"I wanted to apologize, Andrew," he forced himself to say. "My father-in-law shouldn't have done that to you. That wasn't my intention, I swear." Well, that was a bit of lie. His intention had been worse, as he had wanted Andrew to go to jail, but of course, Andrew would know that already. Henry had the feeling he wasn't listening to him, but he kept talking. "I was just as much of a criminal, and-I'm-I feel terrible about Siobhan. She was awful to you, horrible, even. We both were. We shouldn't have-"

"Well, you can have her now. I'm over her. I've already filed for divorce."

So he _was_ listening.

Andrew walked toward the the kitchen, where his briefcase was propped next to one of the cardboard boxes that was on the counter. Henry didn't know if he should follow, but did so against his better judgment. Andrew opened the briefcase and threw its contents directly at Henry's face.

"Here's a copy of the papers," he snarled. "You show them to her, and make sure she understands that she's not getting _anything _out of me, and if she tries, _I will burn her to the ground._"

He was inches from Henry, practically towering over him, which was odd for Henry to grasp because they were roughly the same height, until he realized that he was cowering. Again. He took a glance down at the creased papers in his hand. "Irreconcilable differences" was written as the reasoning for the divorce. It was the same excuse every celebrity couple used, a code for "Something really bad happened but it's none of your business so shut up and just divorce us."

"Ok," he said quietly. What else was there to say? Then, he realized something. This could work to his advantage. Andrew's unemployment. His filing for divorce. It could ba useful. Besides, Andrew needed to have Siobhan around for the divorce to be finalized. In that moment, Henry added to his plan to get back at her. Hopefully, it would work and she would be gone forever. The only problem with this new addition was that now he had to relay some information to Andrew. A lot of information.

He took a deep breath, trying to prepare what he was going to say next. He stared at one of the cardboard boxes on the counter, trying to collect his thoughts. That was when he noticed what was at the top of the box, the last item to go in it, to prevent it from being damaged.

It was a photograph of Andrew and Siobhan, her hair pulled back in her signature bun. It was shocking. Why the hell would Andrew keep a photo of Siobhan? Why wasn't it crumpled up in a trash can with piles of garbage on top of it? There was no way Andrew had any feelings for her left. But, when he looked closer at the picture, he saw the reason why Andrew had kept it. The clue was in the dress she was wearing. A dark red strapless gown with design on the bust that gave the illusion of steps on a ziggurat. Siobhan had received it as a birthday gift a few years back from another socialite housewife, a real bitch, as she had told Henry. She had complained about the dress and how it made her breasts look disproportioned with her shoulders. No one else thought so, but Siobhan listened to no one but herself. She tried the dress on once and proudly proclaimed that she threw it in the back of the closet, hoping that moths would get hungry enough to eat it, even though they didn't eat that kind of material. She probably didn't throw it away just in case the woman who gave it to her showed up and she needed proof that she still had it. But, she would have never worn it out in public, much less take a _photograph _in it. Siobhan had to look her best in photos, after all. Appearance was everything to her.

It was obvious. The woman in the photo wasn't Siobhan. It was Bridget.

"You can leave now." The sound of Andrew's voice made Henry flinch, but he didn't move.

"You may be over Siobhan, but you're definitely not over Bridget." Henry gestured to the photo. "Siobhan hates that dress. She wouldn't be caught dead wearing it. Plus, you wouldn't keep a photo of her, not after all this."

Andrew responded by snatching the picture out of the box so violently that it almost tipped over. "Who are _you _to tell me how I feel? Get out, or I'm calling security."

Henry complied and walked to the elevator, glad to be getting away from the smell of all that paint, but he didn't make any move to go down just yet. He had to tell Andrew what he needed to hear.

"I'm not leaving until I tell you something important," Henry replied. It was probably the most courage he had ever shown in front of Andrew Martin. "But first, I have to ask: who did you take the bullet for? Was it for Siobhan or was it for Bridget?"

&& Andrew's POV &&

The apartment was quiet when Henry finally left. Andrew stood in the entrance to the elevator for what felt like an eternity. He had just taken another giant leap of faith in trusting Henry. At first, he wouldn't have any part in his plan, because he feared that Henry would trick him. Henry had done so much to hurt him for Lord knew how long, but what more could he do now? He couldn't throw him in jail without exposing his own murder of Tyler Barrett, something Andrew had suspected since Tim Arbogast had shown up with Tyler's flashdrive, saying that Henry had given it to him. Henry's being behind the murder was the only explanation as to how he could have obtained it.

Besides, Henry did have a motive for wanting Siobhan out of his life. She had lied to him far more times than he could count, she was responsible for his wife's murder, she had caused Henry to murder a man, and thus have his children taken away from him.

After a long consideration, Andrew had accepted. He would divorce Siobhan, but not before beating her to her own game.

As for everything else that Henry had told him, he was in shock. He had to clear his head. He went back to his room and changed out of his suit and into some basketball shorts and a t- shirt. Going for a run was the only past time that help him now. He needed it.

He left the complex and ran to Marcus Garvey Memorial Park, a few miles from Park Avenue. It wasn't a huge park, but it was close enough to his home and had a nice long pathway for him to run on. He usually ran around five to six miles a day, but today he decided he needed to go longer. So much was on his mind.

He couldn't believe that he might actually have two daughters lying sick in a hospital. He didn't know for sure if they were his, as Henry had informed him that Siobhan had been sleeping with Tyler as well, which wasn't a surprise at all. But, they might have been, and if they were, he needed to know. The thought made him so angry that he could have strangled Siobhan. She had had his babies and thought she could pass them off as Henry's and live her life from there. What a sick bitch. He couldn't believe it.

Or maybe he could. Siobhan had been cold and cruel throughout their entire marriage. Of course, she would be evil enough to hide his children from him.

He wanted desperately to see them now. He wondered what they looked like, if they resembled him. Did they have his eyes, as Juliet did? That would be any easy test to see if they were really his, but he would get a real paternity test done some time this week before they were released from the hospital. He wanted to go straight to the ICU and see them, but he knew from what Henry had told him that Siobhan would be there a while, and she couldn't know that he knew about the babies. Not yet, anyway. So, he couldn't show his face while she was there. He had to wait until Henry gave him the all clear. Maybe later that night.

He kept running down the curvy pathway, speeding passed a group of bikers, but not seeing them.

He was so happy that they were alive, that they had not been miscarried, as he had thought. He didn't know if he could forgive Bridget for anything she had done in the past seven months, but lying about a miscarriage was at the very top of his list. It was cruel of her to make him think that his child had died. Why couldn't she have just said the doctors had made a mistake? That she wasn't pregnant? That would have at least been the truth. He remembered her face when she had gotten the call from the doctor that day. It was not one of happiness, but one of reluctance. He had wondered why at the time, but, now, of course, it was obvious: she had known that she had not been pregnant, but was afraid to say otherwise. Thinking about it, he supposed that he had something to do with that. He had been so excited to hear that he was having another child that he hadn't asked her any questions. He had followed his impulses and told everyone he knew, including Gemma and Henry. Once the word had gotten out, she was trapped.

_Wait_. He slowed his pace a bit and hopped over a paper cup that someone had thrown on the path. Why was he making excuses for her actions? She had lied about something horrible, and there was no excuse for that. He shouldn't be blaming himself for what she had done.

He kept running. He couldn't stop. The images from the countless nightmares he had been suffering from were threatening to cloud his mind. He had been waking up in a cold sweat for nights now, so much so that he was afraid to sleep. Nightmares of Bridget lying dead in the street, of men beating her, of her begging for drugs. It was too much for him. But why had he been having those nightmares? He shouldn't care so much about her. She didn't deserve it. It didn't make sense.

He had only kept Bridget's picture because she had been everything he had wanted in a wife. Loving and devoted. She had eyes only for him and would do anything he asked. At least, that was the vibe she had put off during those seven months. She was caring and selfless, never asking for anything, the perfect wife. she had been an amazing mother to Juliet, more so than Catherine ever had.

He suddenly felt awful about his daughter. Right after he had smacked her, he had felt terrible about it. Later that night, when dropping off some of her things at the detention center, he had written her a note of apology, saying how much he loved her and how important she was to him. He couldn't help wondering if Bridget had been there, would Juliet be in such a mess or had Bridget made the mess?

After her secret was out, Andrew had every reason to throw away everything that reminded him of her, but he found that he could not. He was so confused. She had lied, just as Siobhan had, but he could not let go of all the memories that he had made with her. The passed seven months, regardless of all the negative things that had happened, had been the happiest of his entire life. He had felt complete with Bridget, unlike he had ever felt with her sister or Catherine, who had always greeted him with nothing but coldness and pure egotism.

Bridget had stayed with him after she had learned about the Ponzi scheme, after she had realized that he wasn't a threat to her, that he would never harm her. He had thought Siobhan, who had once threatened to turn him into the police, finally loved him enough to stick by him.

That was why Henry's question was such a hard one to answer. He had thought he had taken the bullet for Siobhan. He had thought that he had fallen in love with her again after so many months of frustration and sadness, thinking that their marriage was near its end. But, now he knew the truth: the bullet _had _been for Bridget, not just literally, but emotionally as well, because Bridget, or at least the facade that she pretended to have, was the woman he loved.

He brushed away the salty tears that were now mingling with the sweat. If it had been the real Siobhan that he had stood in front of that night, she would have fled right when he had gone down. She would not have cradled him, cried over him, pleading with him to stay with her. He remembered the searing pain, so horrible that there was nothing to describe it. There was nothing like it. He could not even keep his eyes open. All he could do was lie still on the cold floor of the loft and wait for the ambulance to arrive. He didn't know how long it had taken for them to get there, but he knew Bridget had never left his side.

Upon returning home after two days in the hospital, he was bedridden for another three, unable to move, and Bridget had been there for him throughout it all. She cooked for him. She waited on him hand and foot, and when he needed nothing, she would lie in bed with him all day, her warm fingers entwined with his. The first time the two of them were naked, intimate, after the shooting, she had burst into tears upon seeing the huge scar on his chest, sobbing about how sorry she was for everything that had happened, about accusing him of trying to hurt her. Catherine and Siobhan wouldn't have done that. They would have complained and whined during his sedentary confinement about how hard it was to take care of him, about how he was just being lazy, and would have eventually left, probably leaving him in the care of a nurse until he recovered. And there was no telling what they would have done had the bullet pierced his spine and rendered him paralyzed, as it had become very close to doing. Most likely, they would have put him in a nursing home, drained his bank account, and left for an exotic beach somewhere. He knew that's what they would have done. But, Bridget. He didn't know. Had all of it been a lie?

Drug addicts and prostitutes were good at scamming men to get what they wanted. Is that what Bridget had been doing? Scamming him because of his money? Would she have left him upon his losing everything? He thought back to the day when he had asked her if she would stay with him regardless of the money, even if they had nothing. She had seemed so genuine upon saying yes, and now that time had actually come.

Had she really loved him that much?

He didn't know, but her facade was enough for him to keep her picture around. He wanted a woman who loved him, and if her memory was the ideal, so be it. He didn't know if he could trust the real Bridget or if he ever wanted to see her again.

He only knew one thing for certain: Bridget, the woman he thought she was, had made him a better man.

&& The Sheridan Apartment, Nine Hours Later &&

Bridget had wondered why Greer had kept her around after she had been forced to explain her true identity. Wasn't she afraid of having a junkie prostitute in her house? Wouldn't Bridget be a horrible influence on London? After she had lied about everything for the past seven months? She had obviously taken pity on her. She couldn't throw a woman out on the street after offering her a place to stay. But, still, she acted as if Bridget were her best friend.

On Thursday, she had gladly taken her to the OBGYN to check on the baby. Bridget was about five weeks along now, roughly what she had predicted, maybe a little earlier. It meant that the baby would be due in December, around Christmas. How ironic. It was about the size of a tadpole, according to the doctor, and its brain and spinal chord were taking shape, which meant all was going well.

The ultrasound had been a bit strange to see, though. The close-up had made the baby look a bit like a caterpillar or a centipede. But, when Bridget had heard the heartbeat, she was both ecstatic and sad. Ecstatic because she had never been pregnant before and now it had finally happened. She was going to be a real mother, the best mother that she could be. But, she was sad, because she didn't know how to explain it to Andrew. Of course, he had to know, but when and how would she tell him? And if he didn't want her back, how would they raise the baby? She briefly wondered if Andrew would try to get full custody of it, but then she brushed the idea off. He wouldn't do that to her. He wasn't a heartless man. They would share the child. Somehow.

She yawned and realized that she felt very rested, probably the most rested she had been in a week. The sky outside her window was a mixture of gold and pink, signaling the setting sun, and judging by the clock next to her bed, it was eight thirteen at night, meaning that she had literally slept all day, barring the one time when she had gotten up to use the bathroom. She had seen Greer then, in her usual cheerful mood, helping the maid move the furniture, always the helper.

She propped herself up on the pillow, one so soft that it made her sink when she lay on it. She could have gone back to sleep if she'd wanted to, but decided against it. To much sleep today, and tomorrow night she might be an insomniac. No, she needed to get out of bed for a few hours at least. She was feeling well enough. A bit hungry, even, foe the first time in a day or so.

As she was about to place her feet on the floor, there was a knock.

"Bridget?" London's voice called softly.

"Hey London. You can come in. I'm awake," she replied as she turned on the lamplight.

The door opened and London came in backwards, carrying a tray with two bowls of soup.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, stopping at the foot of the bed.

"Uh! Much better," Bridget smiled. "Hungry, even."

"Good." London looked happy to have someone to talk to. "Mom went to the airport to pick up Dad. They'll probably be back around ten. I brought you some soup. I wasn't sure if you'd want to eat anything but...It's carrot." She beamed proudly. "I made it myself. It's got carrots and onions and celery, all boiled and mixed in a blender. So it's nice and smooth...and good for babies."

She sat down on the bed next to Bridget and put the tray between them. The soup was orange, alright. Definitely carrot.

"Aw, thanks, London. That's sweet of you." London was most certainly her mother's daughter. She cared about everyone and saw the best in everything, and could make any situation, if not happy, then bearable.

Bridget picked up her spoon and dug right into the soup, but carefully. She had to remember that if she ate too much, then she might vomit again. She tool a bite. It was delicious, warm, and filling. Better than tomato, she decided.

They were silent for a few moments before Bridget asked London the question she had been pondering.

"Why did your parents let me stay here? After they found out who I was?" She knew that "_What _I was" would have been more accurate, but it sounded awkward in speech.

London shrugged, still bright-eyed. "I don't know. Because thay knew you were nice and that you were sorry? That's how I feel, anyway. I mean, everybody does bad things, but I think there's a big difference between the people who feel really bad about what they've done and try to change and those who don't care. I don't know, but that's my take. Do you like the soup?"

"Yeah." Bridget was a bit taken aback by the quick change of subject. "It's great." She took another bite of soup to show her enthusiasm. For such a simple dish, it was very good.

She tried thinking. Yeah, if Greer saw the best in everyone, then she would have been nice enough to give someone like Bridget a chance. And who knew? Maybe she _was_ redeemed. She was sincerely sorry for everything she had done, but, then again, did it really matter unless Andrew and Juliet believed it?

"Um," London looked up at her with a child-like expression of nervousness...or uncertainty. Bridget couldn't tell which, but she knew that the fifteen-year-old was going to ask her something. "So tomorrow's Saturday...and I was thinking about going to visit Juliet at the detention center. You know, just to say hi, maybe give her an update on school, and just, you know, let her know that I care. I feel really bad for her and I don't want her to think she doesn't have anybody to talk to, but I was wondering, um...would you like to go with me?"

Bridget felt her stomach drop. There was no way Juliet would see her. "London, honey, that's really nice to offer, but I don't think she would like that." Of course, it would be wonderful to see Juliet again. She really wanted to, to tell her how sorry she was for everything, but after Juliet had compared her to Catherine, she didn't think any explanation of her actions or any apologies would suffice.

"Ok," London replied, nodding. "I just thought I'd ask. She really loved you, you know...back when she thought you were Siobhan. She really did. I was just thinking maybe seeing you would help her a bit, but you're right. If she's mad at you, then..."

She went back to her soup, taking the quietest of slurps.

Bridget thought a moment, stirring the warm vegetable concoction absentmindedly. London was right. Maybe seeing her _would _help Juliet. If anything, Bridget could try explaining herself better. Even if it wouldn't suffice enough for Juliet to forgive her or even believe her, it was the most honorable thing to do. Bridget knew she shouldn't let her fears rule her. She had to do what was right, and she would start with Juliet, the girl she loved as her own daughter. With Andrew it would be harder to do, but that was a mountain she would climb later.

She took a deep breath, took another bite of the scrumptious soup, and smiled. "You know what, London? You're right. I changed my mind. Let's go see Juliet tomorrow."


	6. Check Yes, Juliet

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! I'm back from Belgium, which means I have a real computer now! Please remember to review and tell me if the story is going well. I want it to be as true to Ringer as possible. Please tell me if you like it and why! I need your help!

Love,

May

**Chapter Six: Check Yes, Juliet**

Saturday

In all honesty, jail wasn't as horrible as Juliet had pictured it. For one thing, no one had tried to sexually harass her, which was what she had dreaded the most. The detention center she was in housed forty residents (all girls, of course) between the ages of twelve and seventeen, with all of the crimes imaginable, with the exception of murder. It was a large building with more windows and rooms than Juliet could count, complete with a barb wired fence around the "recreational courtyard." During the week, the residents were put on a strict schedule: Everyone was to wake up at six A.M. Breakfast was at six-thirty. Recreation, which included thirteen laps around the edges of the courtyard, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred push-ups, and a series of random aerobic routines that the warden picked for the day, was at seven, beating the ridiculous heat wave that was currently killing the state of New York. Juliet had always been upset about P.E. class when she was in school, but she found this to be absolutely ridiculous. Then, at eight-thirty, everyone was forced to do some sort of manual labor. Cleaning, cooking, lifting, or whatever else the center needed done. Juliet finally got _some _relief at ten, when everyone's schedule became individual. Some kids went to classes first, others went to group meetings. It depended on the person and what they were in for.

Even though this particular center didn't hold murderers, there were some teenage gang members who had committed violent crimes, and they were mostly avoided by the other occupants. As she was considered a "violent offender," a lot of kids avoided her, too, but it wasn't like she minded it. She wasn't in the mood for friends now, anyway. Her father had put her in there to reflect on her actions, not to meet people.

Still, there was always that one person who didn't care what you had done, and would happily (and annoyingly) try to be your friend. In this case, the girl's name was Connie, a seventeen-year-old who had been in the center for about a month. She never divulged to Juliet why she was there, but Juliet suspected that it couldn't have been anything violence-related. That is, of course, unless Connie were bipolar and had weird manic fits of rage, or maybe a split personality that caused her to be violent at random times. But, at any rate, she didn't seem much of a threat to Juliet, just overly annoying and talkative.

She talked non-stop about how much she loved Shakespeare and how "Juliet" was the perfect tragic character. Great. Really? Juliet never would have thought of that in a million years. She had always wondered why the play was billed a _tragedy. _Ugh. She had tried to be friendly, but her heart wasn't in it.

Then, there was the psychiatrist who was required to interview all of the juveniles. She was always on Juliet's schedule, but when she saw her changed daily. She had explained that her job was trying to get to the bottom of the teenager's "violent escapade," as she called it. It was obvious that the woman, with her giant glasses and pinched nose, thought Juliet was a piece of crap that could never be rehabilitated. Each time she had seen her, the woman had made Juliet feel as if she were a horrible person on the inside. With questions like "What possessed you to do something that awful to a helpless girl?" it was clear that the woman was on Ellie's side, which was stupid, because it she wanted to help the victims of violence, why was she working in a detention center? Maybe it made her look like she cared about the prison population. Maybe she just wanted to assert power. Who knew? She sure did get a kick out of making people miserable. Juliet wondered if Andrew had set up the counseling or if it was just something that the center thought would benefit her. If it were Andrew's doing, then the woman had lied on her resume, and if it were the center's doing, well, then they were just plain lazy and had needed someone to babysit psycho kids.

Juliet had tried to explain her reasoning for why she had hurt Ellie, that she wasn't a bad girl by nature, and that she hadn't meant to do it, but there was no use in telling her the whole story, as that would mean explaining everything from Catherine to Siobhan to Bridget. Maybe it would have been appropriate to speak of Catherine, but not Siobhan or Bridget, and as everything about Catherine would lead into the twins, she avoided mention of all three of them. Instead, she had explained that Tessa was a friend of hers and was being bullied by Ellie, and that if anything, Tessa was the one who needed counseling, as she was no doubt traumatized by the incident. So, the woman shouldn't be wasting her time talking to people that she couldn't care less about. Juliet knew it was mean for her to say, but she didn't care. She was brazen. She was bold, and if a woman upset her that much, she didn't care how she acted around her. She would say what she meant.

But, today was Saturday, which meant that she didn't have go see her dreadful psychiatrist. On the weekends, everyone had a little bit more freedom. There were still set times for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and boot camp recreation, but for most of the day, most of the girls were allowed to do as they pleased (as long as it was approved by the warden and they wore a tracking bracelet around their ankles). For example, they had the option of working in the garden with three gallons of water and a supervisor, playing board games (again, under supervision), or staying in their rooms. Juliet had chosen the last one. She didn't want to talk to anyone, and she quickly figured out that staying in bed would be her only option for peace and quiet, as her other three roommates had chosen to spend their day elsewhere. She was curled up under the warm blanket (ninety-five degrees outside meant thirty degrees inside for the wardens, of course; it was insane) that her grandmother had given her for her sixteenth birthday. It was fleece, dark blue, with "Juliet" written in fancy white letters sewn in. It was her favorite blanket, and never failed to comfort her. She hadn't seen either of her paternal grandparents since Christmas, as they lived in Wales about three thousand miles away. They had never been too fond of Catherine or Siobhan, either, which, Juliet suspected, had something to do with their infrequent visits to the States, and how they had always been one hundred percent happier when neither of Andrew's horrid wives showed at their doorstep. That is, until this past Christmas, when Bridget came to Cardiff kind and cheery and had _offered _to help out around the house. They had been pleasantly shocked.

Siobhan had been just plain bitchy and didn't respect them, while Catherine had always been nice on the surface, but they hadn't ever been blind to her love of all things material above all else, including her daughter. Of course, they never said any of this directly to Juliet, but she had heard their conversations behind closed doors, about how Catherine had been wrong for their son, how she was indecent, a spoiled brat, everything bad you could say about a person. Apparently, they had known about her alcoholism, as they had always made it a practice of locking the liqueur cabinet when she was over and never offered a drink to anyone, even on formal occasions. They were angry about Andrew having married her so young, and maybe they even suspected that Juliet's life had been an evil trick of Catherine's. It wouldn't surprise Juliet at all if they shared her thoughts about that. But, at least they loved her. She wasn't a burden on them, and her coming so early in her father's life probably had saved him from a lot of the destruction that young people experience. While other twenty-one-year-old boys were out getting drunk and high and having sex in bathroom stalls at two o'clock in the morning, the only reason Andrew had been awake that early had been to feed a baby and change her diapers. If anything, Juliet had taught him to be mature early on.

She sighed and flipped her pillow over. It was true that he hadn't been the most attentive father in the world. If he had been around more as a little girl, instead of trying to climb the money ladder, she would have had a parent to confide in about Catherine's behavior, and most likely, he would have left her sooner, which also meant that Juliet wouldn't have needed drugs to take her mind off her mother's selfishness. Maybe if he had been around more, he would have understood her better and known how to communicate with her. But, at least he had made an effort to take care of her. He had tried to keep her out of harm's way the best he knew how, rather than put her in the middle of it, or blatantly ignore her, as Catherine was guilty of both. At least he loved her and never wanted to be rid of her. Again, Catherine was guilty of that, too.

She got out of bed, the hard floor very cold against her bare feet, and walked to her duffel bag. Andrew had dropped it off on Tuesday night, containing the blanket, a toothbrush, and some pajamas, along with a handwritten note of apology for slapping her at the police station. Not that he needed to apologize, as she had completely deserved it, but she accepted it anyway, because it was obvious that he was sincere. Catherine had never apologized for any wrongdoing against Juliet, but made stupid excuses for them instead. She just hoped the cops hadn't decided to charge Andrew with child abuse. That would be horrible, because then he would lose custody of her and that meant that she would either have to go live with his parents in Cardiff or Catherine's parents in Vermont, and while she loved both sets, she wanted to stay with her father. She loved him and he _hadn't_ done anything wrong. At least, not on purpose.

She opened up the duffel and took out the note that he had written her. It was a bit crumpled now, a short note, but not one that she would be getting rid of. She unfolded it and read,

_I can't express how sorry I am for slapping you today. I hope you understand that no matter what I do, you will always be the most important thing in my life. I love you and I'll see you soon, sweetheart._

_Daddy_

It was nice of him. Maybe there would be some affection between them after she got out. She had been afraid not, but the letter had reassured her. She took it back to her bed and pulled the blanket over her head. She knew she should try to get some rest before her other three "roommates" came back and started raising hell. She hated sharing a room with other people anyway, but since these girls were criminals, it was doubly scary.

Juliet didn't know where they were at the moment and didn't care. Maybe she had gotten lucky and they had all been transferred to another facility? That would have made her day. She put Andrew's letter under her pillow and closed her eyes. If she kept them closed long enough, she would fall asleep, even if it were only for a little while.

She knew she fell asleep eventually, because the next thing she knew, she was being jolted awake by someone shaking her shoulder.

She opened her eyes groggily. It took a moment for her to get out of her "fog of sleep," as she liked to call it. It was the period after she woke up when she had no idea where she was. When her brain finally came into focus, she realized that it was Meaghan, one of her roommates, a sixteen-year-old repeat DUI offender who had been caught driving on the wrong side of the road in her last pull-over.

"Juliet," Meaghan said, smelling of sweat and dirt. She must have been gardening. "Juliet...Samantha wants you."

"Juliet!" A woman's voice shouted from the doorway, "you have visitors. Get up!"

_Visitors? _She wondered who they could be. Maybe Andrew? He would want to see how she was doing in there, but at the same time, his appearance seemed unlikely to her. He had put her in there with the intention of not seeing him for a week, and it wasn't likely that he would change his mind and come see her, even if he wanted to apologize in person. He could do it on Tuesday, and in fact, it probably would have been better like that, because he would have had a whole keep to calm down. Or maybe Andrea or Holland? They were her friends and probably would want to check on her. Or maybe even Tessa? Maybe she was coming to say "Thank you" for defending her? It was a bit far-fetched, but it could still happen. If Tessa's brain could change her view of numbers, maybe it could even make her personality friendlier. Juliet only hoped it wasn't Ellie and her possy coming to tease her or scream insults. She would deserve it, surely, but she wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.

She groaned at the thought, still frozen in her sleeping position. She had wondered how Ellie was holding up, but she never wanted to see her face-to-face. Never again.

"Juliet!" Samantha was yelling her name again. "Get up. You've been in here all day."

_What's wrong with that? _It was Saturday. She didn't have to get up if she didn't want to, even in prison.

But, if she had people waiting to see her, she had to get up. If Ellie was there, she could always run away. She sat up and stretched, when, with a feeling of disgust and embarrassment she noticed that she was drooling.

Ew! She angrily wiped her mouth off and stumbled out of bed, something she always did when she was extra tired, and fumbled around for her socks and shoes. She didn't bother brushing her hair or anything, because she figured no one would care. This was prison, not a beauty pageant.

Samantha let out a small laugh as she opened the door for Juliet to walk out.

"What?" Juliet replied groggily. She knew her hair was a mess, but it wasn't anything Samantha hadn't seen before.

"You have a _huge _dent on your cheek. You must have slept on it weird."

_Great. _Now everyone would think she was beating herself up in here. She rubbed her cheek dismissively.

"Whatever… Where am I going?"

"Come on." Samantha waved her hand for Juliet to follow. She was a tall, model-type girl, which made Juliet wonder why she would pick such a bleak career as a corrections officer for a bunch of messed up kids. Maybe it was just temporary, something to help pay for modeling school.

Juliet followed her down the hallway passed the other cells. There were ten rooms in all, holding four girls each, which meant there were bound to be some pretty rough cat fights, Bad Girls Club-style, but thankfully, Juliet hadn't witnessed any so far. However, her main concern wasn't _seeing_ one, but rather making sure that _she _wasn't in the middle.

They walked down the bleak metal staircase, passed two girls who were playing checkers on the stairs.

The rest of the building was just as bleak. The paint on the walls was yellowish and crumbling, and it was freezing. The whole building was basically an icicle. But, of course it was. People didn't have incentive to make a detention center comfortable. It was standard for a prison. They saw the outside temperature as being"unbearably hot," so they thought they could cancel it out by making the inside "unbearably cold."

Finally, they came to a room with a green door that Juliet had never been in before. She didn't know how her "visitors" were going to talk to her, but she could guess it would be like what she saw in the movies: a glass wall separating them, leaving them nothing but those old-fashioned cord phones to communicate with.

When Samantha took about thirty keys out of her pocket, Juliet cringed. She had been afraid of keys for the past few days. It was silly, she knew, but she couldn't help seeing Ellie getting slashed every time she saw one. She was scared to touch them, afraid that she might do something like that again. Luckily, it took Samantha only a quick glance at the scary weaponry to determine which one opened this particular door. It was a huge relief for Juliet to see her put them back in her pocket.

As the door opened, Juliet noticed three things: first, that the room wasn't separated in the middle by a glass wall or phones, just a table a few wooden chairs; second, that it smelled like asparagus (she didn't want to know why; hopefully, no one had peed in the trash can), and third, that London Sheridan was sitting at the table, her signature smile and wave taking in most of Juliet's concentration.

"London!" Juliet was overjoyed to see someone who wasn't going to judge her, but she did feel a bit guilty at the sight of her. London was the perfect person to come see her and probably the most obvious, but Juliet had completely forgotten about her.

"Hi Juliet!" London was still smiling, her pretty auburn hair pulled back in a pony tail with a golden scrunchie that she had bought a few weeks ago when the two of them had gone shopping together.

They gave each other bear hugs upon meeting. This was the happiest Juliet had felt in days.

"I'm so happy to see you," London said excitedly as Juliet sat down across from her. The smell of asparagus was dimming now. Hopefully it would be gone shortly.

"You guys have an hour," Samantha informed them. "If you want your mom to come in, London, you can just open the door. It's unlocked. She's right outside."

"Thanks." London giggled, and Samantha walked out of the room with her boots thudding.

When the door was closed for good, London's first instinct was evidently to start talking faster than the speed of light, wanting to fill Juliet in on everything that was happening at school.

"Ok, so Ellie came back on Wednesday with a _huge _eye patch covering her stitches, and she was trying to make up stupid stories about how you, like, ambushed her in the hallway with, like, a butcher knife, which was really stupid because, you know, practically, like, a fourth of the school saw what happened. But, anyway, she was trying to get everybody she could to believe it, but then she tried telling the story to some hot dude she likes right in front of Dr. Merriman, you know, 'cause she's so smart and all, and then she got suspended for the rest of the week. So…yeah, she's not getting off Scott free."

"Happy to hear it," Juliet replied truthfully. She wished it were Ellie who had wound up in Juvie, but she had to remember that wasn't the police that put her in here. It had been Andrew, for his own disciplinary reasons. Otherwise, she would have had a max of a day behind bars. That meant that if Ellie had been the offender, she wouldn't have been in here anyway, and from the looks of it, Ellie had nothing bad happen to her whatsoever until she started lying about the fight. But, suspension was suspension, and if she were being punished for anything, Juliet would be happy about it. Even if she had hurt Ellie, which she regretted horribly, Ellie was still mean to everyone and did whatever she could to get attention. She deserved some sort of punishment.

"So, what's up with you?" Juliet asked, trying to change the subject. Hearing about London's personal life had to better than hearing about school. What happened to that guy she was talking to a few weeks ago? Did she still like him? Had he talked to her? Had she gotten that white bunny from the pet shop that she had wanted so badly? Most importantly, how was Bridget? Was she even still around? Juliet's stomach sunk as she pondered it. Probably not. London's parents probably wouldn't have let her stay after finding out who she really was. It was a sad thought. Juliet only hoped that, wherever Bridget was, she was being wise.

But, somehow, she didn't feel like she had to worry much about that.

"I've been good," London replied, twirling her hair absentmindedly. "My dad went to Seattle this week."

_Seattle. _Juliet couldn't help asking, with a laugh, "Did he see any vampires?" She felt like herself again.

London rolled her eyes. "No."

"Oh yeah, Team Jacob. Forgot, sorry."

London gave her a look and tapped her fingers on the table. Her expression changed and she sighed disapprovingly. "Andrea's still upset about Josh. She's still complaining about what a butthead he was and lots of other stuff that I think's really stupid. I don't know why she's telling _me _all this stuff. Why would she come to a tenth grader for any sympathy? Are you the only friend in eleventh grade she has?"

"No," Juliet responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "She has a few." Although, admittedly she couldn't of any right off hand. She had thought Andrea was over Josh by now, anyway. It had been over two weeks since their break up. Wasn't there any other guy she could chase after?

"Well, hopefully she's almost done," said London. She shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what else to say, until she asked, "So…are you doing ok in here? I mean, no one's being extra mean to you or anything?"

"No, no, I'm fine. It's nothing like that. I deserve it. You know I do. My dad did the right in putting me here." She wouldn't have been angry if London decided not to argue.

Instead of saying anything, London nodded sadly. It was obvious that she still felt bad for her, though. She was so sweet.

"Thanks for coming." Juliet smiled.

"You're welcome. I hope you know I still think you're awesome! And if you have any problems, you know, you can come talk to me. I'll listen. I don't want you to get into any more trouble." London said. "I know you were feeling really bad and all, and you probably felt like you couldn't control yourself…But…you know what you did was wrong…."

"Yeah, of course, I do. I'll _never _do it again, I promise." And that was the truth. Juliet couldn't afford to make a mistake like that again. She didn't want to know what the consequences would be if she did, but she could guess.

London gave another smile, but suddenly, glanced at the door with a worried look on her face.

"Um," was always the beginning of a sentence when she needed to explain something complicated.

"What?" Juliet asked. "Are you afraid your mom's gonna tell you you have to leave?"

"No." London was looking down at the table now, a bit shaken. If there was one thing odd about London, it was that ninety-nine percent of the time, she was the happiest person in the world, but when she was upset about something, it became really obvious. Unlike most people that Juliet knew, she couldn't hide her emotions at all.

"Then what's wrong? I can help you if you want."

"Well, no." London glanced back at the door again. "I don't need help…." She sighed. "Juliet…I also came to talk because I wanted to—I didn't bring my mom with me…."

"Ok?" What did that mean? That she snuck out of the house and grabbed some stranger off the street because her mom didn't want her to come? "So…what?"

"I…" another pause, but then she blurted out, "Ok…I brought Bridget!"

Ok, Juliet didn't know what to say to that. On one hand, she was _dying _to see Bridget, to tell her she loved her and that she was sorry for the awful things that she had said to her the last night she had seen her. But, on the other hand, she was still angry with her for lying. Why did she have to do that? Why couldn't she have just told everyone the truth as soon as she thought Siobhan had committed suicide? Why did she have to pull such an awful charade? Why?

_If she hadn't, you'd have never had a real mom, _said the voice in the back of her head. It was right, as it always was (she should have listened to it when it told her not to attack Ellie; or what about the time her mom brought up the whole rape scheme? Yeah, she should have listened to it a long time ago) but the answer still didn't explain why all of it had started.

She finally asked, "And you wrote her in as your mom?"

"Yeah. I felt like it would be better than giving her real name. I didn't know if your dad would check to see who came to see you or not. I was kind of worried he would be here today." She shrugged again and looked around the room for something. "It doesn't look like there are any cameras in here, but there probably were a ton in the hallway. Hopefully, if he sees them he won't be too upset."

The look on her face said "Oh, well," as there was nothing they could do about it now. Maybe Bridget should have worn a wig if she had wanted to be extra careful.

"You don't have to see her, you know. I just thought maybe you'd want to…you know, maybe try to patch things up or something. I don't know…you really need a mom right now…and I know how much you used to like her."

_Used to. _Yeah.

"But, she _is _waiting outside the door," London kept going hastily, tapping her fingers a bit faster. "So, if you want to see her, I'll go tell her to come in, and I'll give you guys some privacy, 'cause If you do talk, you probably need to do it alone."

Juliet sat back in her seat and stared at the ceiling. There seemed to be a leak in one of the pipes upstairs, because there was a wet blob just above her head. Maybe that was the source of the asparagus smell. Gross.

_Wait. _She scolded herself inwardly. She had to return her mind to Bridget. She knew she couldn't let anything else distract her. If she wanted to talk to her, to tell her everything, to ask her questions, now would be the time to do it.

"Ok," she finally said. "Let her come in."

London squealed happily and wasted no time running to the door.

"Bridget, she wants to see you!" she cried as she stuck her head out the door, her hands shaking like they did when she was super excited.

The next thing Juliet knew, Bridget Kelly was stepping into the room, an unsure expression on her face. She looked pale, a bit sick, even, and her nose wrinkled slightly at the sharp smell that wafted straight toward her as she stepped inside.

"Bye guys! Have fun!" London waved cheerfully and left the room, leaving the pieces to fall where they may.

Bridget stepped forward slowly, obviously wanting Juliet to invite her to sit, which was only natural. Of course, she had no idea of the reaction she would get when Juliet saw her. Juliet herself wasn't even sure how she felt.

"You can sit," the girl said quietly, her stomach making her feel as queasy as Bridget looked to be. Hopefully, this wouldn't go too badly.

Bridget complied and sat down in the chair London had been occupying, stumbling a bit as she did so.

An awkward smiled preceded her first words. "Hi Juliet."

"Hi Bridget," Juliet replied, again, very quietly. She wished she could speak louder, but her normal volume was stuck at "Abnormally Low" from the range of emotions that she was experiencing. She began running her fingers through her long tangled hair. After a few days of showering without the aid of a blow dryer or straightener (or any good hair product at all, for that matter), Andrew's thick curls had taken their full shape again.

"So…how are you feeling? In here, I mean?" Bridget spoke, not wanting there to be any weird silence. But that was in the making already.

If Catherine or Siobhan had asked her that question, Juliet would have taken it as to mean "How has it been not being able to use your credit card for five whole days? Sucks, doesn't? Ungrateful little bitch. _That's_ why you don't get in trouble," or something along those lines, implying that Juliet deserved to be punished severely and that she wasn't anything more than a materialistic airhead. But, when Bridget said it, there was something in the tone, and in her eyes, even, that made the question seem sincere. Bridget was genuinely concerned about how she was fairing in here.

"I'm fine," Juliet replied woodenly. What else could she say? She didn't know what would be suitable to complain about. Having no internet or phone access? Or hair care products? Or how about annoying people who talk a lot? None of those were real concerns. The awful psychiatrist, maybe? Yeah, she might be a real complaint. But, what else was there?

Then, suddenly, it hit her with a burn like a brand to the stomach. There _was_ one real complaint.

She looked Bridget in the eye. "I miss Daddy a lot."

Bridget nodded. "I know," she said. _So do I_, the sad look on her face told Juliet. She gazed around the barren white room, taking it in. "I remember when I was in a place like this." That's right. Bridget knew how it could be. "A few times, actually." She was blushing guiltily. "Drug possession, prostitution, DUI, theft. So, quite a few times. But, of course, I was in 'adult prison,' so…."

Juliet nodded. Being in an "adult prison" meant that there was _a lot _more to deal with, so, of course, Juliet had no right to complain about anything.

"This is a lot like boot camp. We have scheduled exercise and meals, and then we have school and counseling and all that. I mean, _most _of the girls have school. I don't 'cause I'm only here a week. But, I actually imagined it to be way different, like scrubbing toilets all day and stuff." Honestly, she was glad it wasn't like that. "But, it's not horrible. I guess it's different in adult prison, huh?"

"Yeah, a bit." Obviously, that was a huge understatement, but Bridget didn't look like she was keen on saying any more about it.

Juliet changed the subject. "So what have you been up to? Are you still living with London?"

"Yep." Bridget smiled. The Sheridans must have been the nicest people in the world to let her stay after everything that had happened. "Her family is amazing. I thought they were gonna throw me out when I told them. I wouldn't blame them if they had, but it sure makes things better that they didn't. But, anyway, I'm looking for a job now. I've applied to a lot of places. Hopefully, somebody will call me back."

"Yeah," said Juliet. "I have community service when I get out of here." She continued to run her fingers through her hair. There was one knot that wouldn't break loose.

There was silence for a while, the two of them both nervous as to what to say next. Bridget was starting to look uncomfortable, her face taking shape in ways that made her look like she was possibly on the verge of puking. If that happened, she would probably excuse herself to leave.

No, she couldn't leave yet. Finally, Juliet decided enough was enough. This might be the only time that she had to ask Bridget for the answers she needed. She broke her silence, but just as the words were coming out of her mouth, words were issuing from Bridget's as well.

"Look—" Juliet began.

Bridget appeared to be having the same thoughts. "Juliet, I—"

But they both stopped, waiting for the other to speak first.

"Go on," Bridget motioned, looking a bit hot under the light above her, which was odd considering the temperature of the building. She looked more like she was still standing out in the ninety degree weather. Her blonde hair was sticking to her neck, while everyone else in the building had to be covered in goosebumps.

Juliet hoped she wasn't getting sick, but the stress of everything just might have been taking its toll on her.

But, she decided to ask what she had to ask. If Bridget loved her like she thought she did, she would give her the answers she needed.

"I want to know why you did it. Why did you pretend to be Siobhan? Like, I understand you were in trouble with the mob guy or whatever, but did you really think that was your only way out? Why didn't you just tell us that you thought she'd died? Didn't you feel guilty at all?"

Bridget sniffled. The tears were coming. "Juliet, yes, I did but—" she didn't know how to explain it. That was clear. "—would you honestly have believed me if I told you that I was Siobhan's twin sister, _who you never heard about before, _and that she'd just killed herself?"

No, of course not. In fact, Juliet knew she probably would have burst out laughing at Siobhan saying anything of the sort. Siobhan was a born liar, of course.

She shook her head. "No…."

"But, I _did_ feel horrible." Bridget took Juliet's hands and looked her deep in the eye. "I felt completely awful. I mean, my sister was dead, and I couldn't tell anybody. ...and I so scared that Macawi would find me. He had people following me everywhere and… I didn't know what else to do. It was spur of the moment. I needed a way to protect myself from him and that was all I could think of doing. I mean, it seems so stupid now. I was so horrible for lying and keeping her death a secret. Every _day _I felt guilty about not letting anyone know…I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't…." She burst into tears and started sobbing on the wooden table.

Juliet didn't know what to do. Would it be appropriate to pat her head to sooth her? She glanced around to see if there was a clock in the room. None. Thus, there was no telling how much time they had left.

Bridget lifted her head and wiped her nose on her sleeve. There were no tissues, either.

"I didn't mean to hurt any of you…In fact, I was gonna leave, I was. It was about two weeks after I came to New York…." She tried to wipe her tears away, but they kept coming. "I-I realized that I couldn't keep lying to you guys. I had to leave, but…I couldn't because…."

Juliet nodded and gripped her hand. "Because?"

Bridget blinked, trying to regain her composure. "Because I knew you needed me."

Juliet couldn't place the feeling that had just stabbed her in the stomach. Was it happiness? Shock? Whatever it was, she kept her hand in Bridget's.

"I knew you needed me," Bridget continued, still sniffling. "Your mom wasn't there for you and Siobhan never had been and, I just knew I needed to stay for you. I saw… how you were turning to drugs and alcohol and I knew you needed help. You needed someone there for you. I couldn't leave you like that."

Juliet was silent, thinking hard.

"I saw so much of my destruction in you and I just knew that if I left you, you would go down the same path I did. That night, when you came home and were puking in the toilet, I was getting ready to leave. I was _just _about to walk out the door, but, then…I couldn't….You needed me. You needed a mother, so I stayed, because I knew I had to be to you what Catherine wasn't…." She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, but they didn't muffle her voice. "And—and once I stayed, everything just fell into place and I fell in love with both of you. You and your father. You became my real family and I realized that I didn't want to be anywhere else…I just wish you could forgive me. I'm so sorry."

Bridget continued to weep, but Juliet was frozen, and not from the cold. She couldn't believe what she had just heard.

Bridget had stayed for her. She had every reason to leave, to leave Juliet to drugs and alcohol, but she hadn't. She had stayed to help her, to repair her family….

Then, she realized that that was all she needed to hear, because it cemented everything about Bridget that she had wanted—and known—to be true. She hadn't faked her love at all.

The jolt of the feeling inside her that she hadn't been able to place: it was pure and utter joy.

In one swift motion, Juliet had crossed the table and had thrown her arms around Bridget, sobbing just as much as she was, but she couldn't control it.

"Yes!" she shouted. "Yes! I forgive you, Bridget. I want you to come home." Bridget had to come home now. There was no way Juliet would let her stay away for long. She was her mother. The only one she had ever loved and, most importantly, the only one who had ever loved her, and she deserved to be with her.

The problem was getting Andrew to fall in love with her again, and Juliet had no idea how that would happen.

The two of them stayed locked in each other's arms for a while, before Bridget abruptly pulled away and began searching frantically for something.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm going to—I need—"

She found the trash can just in time before she began hurling.

"Are you alright?" Juliet crouched down next to her, hoping nothing was seriously wrong. Hopefully, it was just a virus and nothing too bad. Anything life-threatening wasn't what Bridget needed right now. "Are you sick?"

Bridget looked up at her, eyes watery and face covered in sweat. She gasped.

"No, Juliet…I'm not sick…."

She continued breathing hard as Juliet looked on confused. Wait, she was clearly sick if she were puking her guts out. Unless—Juliet's stomach dropped to the floor—she meant that she wasn't sick from a disease…. That was when she realized that the asparagus smell had completely vanished.

"I'm pregnant," Bridget breathed, her white hands trembling as they gripped the trashcan.

"Oh…my…goodness…." That was all Juliet could get out of her mouth, because her mind was going a mile a minute.

It was as if a candle of hope had lit inside her body. This was absolutely wonderful! She had always wanted a sibling, and now she was getting one from a mother whom she actually thought was worthy of _being_ a mother! It was amazing!

But, wait. Her heart stopped racing when she realized: how would Andrew react? If he wouldn't accept Bridget for who she was, then how on Earth would he accept her baby? Would he even believe it was his child?

Bridget rose up from the floor clumsily and took Juliet by her shoulders.

"You can't tell your father! I need to figure out how I'm gonna explain it," she said. "I'm afraid that if I tell him too soon he's gonna think…."

"That you did it on purpose." Juliet nodded. Yeah, he might think that. But, on the other hand, if she waited too long, he might get even more upset when he found out.

"You have to promise me you _won't say anything._" The grip on Juliet's shoulders tightened. "Promise me!"

Juliet gave another nod. "Yeah, I promise." It wouldn't be her place to tell anyway, but it didn't make the thought any easier. "How far along are you?"

"About five weeks," Bridget replied, smiling weakly. "The doctor's setting my due date for December."

December! That was even more exciting! A Christmas baby!

_Yes! _


	7. Cruel Intentions

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Here's Chapter Seven! It's a little shorter than the others, but hopefully you'll like it just as much. BTW guys: I finally found the line for scene breaks and POV switches and all that! If anyone wants to know, when you edit your chapter after submitting it to the document file in your profile, there is a line next to the alignments that you can insert! I can't believe I never noticed it before! Anyway, enough of my rambling! Enjoy and please remember to review! Be positive, please!

Thanks,

Love from,

May

**Chapter Seven: Cruel Intentions  
**

Saturday. A few hours later.

Siobhan finally felt a sense of peace as she sat on the back patio of Henry's brownstone, which overlooked the beautiful Gramercy Park, which, oddly for a hot day like today, had people actually walking in it. She wasn't happy because the sun was shining or the sky was blue. In fact, the scorching heat outside should have made her at least agitated, if not, downright angry. Luckily, though, she had a huge green parasol (a putrid green; for an interior design, Gemma certainly had no taste) to cover her and a light breeze from one of those cheap electric fans to keep her cool, along with a nice cold glass of the perfect blend of vodka and lemonade, her favorite drink, perfect to beat the heat. Yes, today was a good day overall.

She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the birds in the Park. It was as if she were back at the Pivoine in Paris again, free from all the cares in the world. Sheer bliss. She puffed joyously on her cigarette, the first she had had in over eight months. If the first drag had been a touch of bliss for her, this one took the cake. They weren't her usual Dunhills, but they were better than nothing at all. Henry had finally consented to buying her the cheap stuff after he made her promise that she would only smoke on the patio with the doors to the house shut, and that she would water down the ashtray when she was finished, similar to what she had to do back on Park Avenue.

If there was one thing Henry Butler and Andrew Martin had in common, it was a pure hatred of tobacco products. (That and the fact that neither of them ever wore shorts in public, unless they were either jogging or swimming, but that was a different matter entirely.) Both would go insane at even the tiniest whiff of smoke in the house, on clothes, on furniture, anywhere, with Andrew getting migraines and Henry throwing his back out from coughing so hard, so Siobhan was forced to take her cigarettes outside and smother the ashes in water to get rid of the smell, washing her clothes afterward. Well, with Henry she actually went through with it. She could care less what Andrew thought, so most of the time when she had smoked, she would intentionally do so inside the apartment and leave the ashtray full on the coffee table, just to piss him off. Once, after smoking, she even left her clothes on the bed so that the smell would transfer itself onto the sheets. His reaction was priceless!

She took a sip of her drink, wondering if Bridget smoked. She didn't remember smelling any tobacco on her that day she came to the Hamptons, and she hadn't lit up while she was there at all, but that didn't mean anything necessarily. Maybe she had run out of the money to buy smokes. Probably. She was a drug addict, so how uncommon would smoking be in her case? Not very. How was Andrew dealing with that, she wondered? Odds were, if Bridget did smoke, she was much more into it than Siobhan was, most likely smoking a pack a day at the least. Andrew certainly couldn't be happy about that.

It didn't matter. A smile appeared across her face as the breeze from the fan blew her hair. Both of them would be dead in a matter of weeks anyway.

It had taken her a while to formulate a good plan, but finally she had it. Siobhan had several options to deal with fraudulent husband and coke whore sister. One would be for her to go to Andrew's home while Bridget was out, and reclaim her life as Siobhan Martin. When Bridget returned, she would kick out of the house, complaining that she had no place there. There was no way Bridget could challenge something like that without giving up her entire charade. Then, once Siobhan was Siobhan again, she would have access to her old account, thus having enough money to hire a hit man to knock off both of them. Her second option would be to walk in on Bridget one day while Andrew was at work, kill her and claim self-defense, and then hire the hit on Andrew. Once either of those scenarios came to pass, she would have access to Andrew's life insurance and all of his assets. As his wife, she could open her own account in his company so that the money would keep coming in, and she and Henry would be free to live wherever they wanted. They could flee the United States, get married, and live happily ever after.

It was a brilliant—beyond brilliant—plan, and it would work. Siobhan just had to wait until her daughters were safely out of the hospital and in Henry's care before she took any action. This coming Thursday would be the day. In the mean time, she would have to concentrate on doing something to rid herself of her baby weight quickly and easily. Originally, she had been dreading walking into the penthouse looking the way she did, but if she could lose the weight fast—or at least cover it up enough so that it didn't look like she had just had babies—everything would work out. She took one last drag of her cigarette before depositing it into the ashtray, when the happiness suddenly turned into frustration at the thought of her daughters.

She loved them. That was a fact, even though she had hoped beyond hope that they had been Henry's, and even when the truth came out, that they were Andrew's, she had thought she could handle it. At first. She told herself that she could ignore it and carry on, as if nothing were wrong, even if she could never convince Henry to take her back. But, now that he was, she had an even better opportunity to pretend that nothing was amiss. His name was on their birth certificates. They could live their lives knowing him and only him as their father and never suspecting otherwise.

But, now, even with Henry, she found herself suddenly rethinking her decision to keep them. It was getting to be too much. The more she looked at them, the more she could see that Portia and Regan were turning into the spitting image of Andrew. His curly dark hair, his long straight nose, his cleft chin, and, of course, his signature chocolate brown eyes. She didn't know if she could stand looking at them for the rest of their lives and see a man she hated. She half-wondered, if Henry decided he no longer wanted them, if she had the heart to put them up for adoption.

As she swallowed her last gulp of her tangy alcoholic concoction, she decided she would look into adoption agencies in the state. She took the ashtray and her glass inside, rinsing both, and then depositing the ashes in the compost bin. She wasn't entirely sure if cigarette ashes were good for compost, but what did she care? A few patches of poor soil wouldn't hurt anyone.

She headed up the stairs to wash her clothes and take a bath. She almost thought of going swimming what with all the heat, but she decided against it. She was still too flabby and the scars from her C-section were still very visible. Besides, the only pool around for miles was one of those public recreational ones where anyone could go. All those germs from thousands of people! Ugh! She wouldn't be able to bear it.

* * *

Henry finally arrived home around six forty-five that night, having spent about three hours of the day out with his lawyers at the police station, trying to find out if there was a way the police could get a warrant to access Tim Arbogast's bank account to see if he had bribed the judge to give him custody of Dash and Becks. Upon doing so, he learned that the judge in the case was no longer practicing there and had moved away. _Probably to Cancun_ was Henry's first thought. If that wasn't suspicious, he didn't know what was. But, it was only when Henry brought to their attention exactly _how _suspicious it was that they agreed to "look into" both Arbogast's account and the judge's to see if there was any odd activity from either within the past week.

He didn't know how he felt when he left the station. He guessed he was glad that the police would at least try to do something to help him, unless, of course, they were in on the whole thing, too, and that was the big issue. If Tim had the whole world caught in his web, then there was no way Henry could win. He tried to pretend that wasn't a possibility.

He spent the rest of the day contemplating what else he could possibly do if the police's search turned up nothing. Unfortunately, everything that he could think of doing, he had already tried. Hopefully, if there was no evidence, the court would come to its senses and realize that Henry was no threat to society and that it was mercilessly wrong for them to take his children away. Certainly, if he were a judge, he would find no flaw in allowing a innocent man full custody of his children. It had worked with everyone else who had been exonerated of crimes and returned to their lives, so why couldn't it work with him?

Eventually, he had decided to take a walk in one of New York's many fabulous parks, in order to do nothing more than avoid Siobhan for the rest of the day. He didn't care that he was wearing jeans or that it was ninety degrees. He just needed to stay away from her as much as possible.

When he finally decided to come home that night, the windows in the living room were open and the ceiling fan was on. She was sitting on the couch dressed in a silk bathrobe and watching some murder documentary on Bio.

"Hey," she said as noticed him walking through the door. She got up off the couch and greeted him with a kiss on the lips. "Where were you? You were gone all day."

She jumped back slightly as she took in the smell of sweat, the huge stain on the front of his shirt, and not to mention, the salt that was now on her lips. It definitely wasn't something she could miss. "Have you been jogging?"

"Oh, no. I went for a walk, actually," he replied, trying to sound as casual as possible. He knew he had to come up with an excuse as to why he did come back and invite her, so he added, "I got done at the police station and I decided I need exercise to get my mind off the boys, you know. I was gonna come back and ask you if you wanted come with me, but… then I remembered your C-section. It probably still hurts…" No, it didn't still hurt. Siobhan had taken walks before. She was perfectly capable of one today. They had even had sex already, much earlier than he expected they would be able to. "Plus, it was hot. I didn't want you to get sick."

She nodded, understanding. "Oh, alright…So how was it? The police? Are they gonna look into Tim?"

"Yeah, they are. They're gonna check his account and the judge's and, you know, see if there was any, like, correspondence, I guess. Any weird transfers of money in the past few days. Stuff like that. They said the judge left town a few days ago, so…."

"You think he took Tim's money and ran?" She asked, looking as though she actually cared. Maybe she did, but she had messed up too much for _him _to care.

"Yeah…probably. Look, Siobhan, I've gotta go take a shower…."

He took off his shoes and hurried up the stairs.

"Ok," she said. "When you're done, hurry back down. _The Notebook_'s on at seven. I was gonna make popcorn."

He ignored her and continued his path to the shower, throwing his sweaty clothes on the floor indiscriminately. On one hand, he was appalled by Siobhan's actions. She had spent the last three days going back and forth about her sister and husband, first saying that they "deserved each other" and could spend their lives together, then out of the blue, she had changed her mind and began talking of nothing but trying to hire a hit on the two of them, and after all that, she could sit down and watch a movie as if nothing was wrong. It made him sick to his stomach. But, at the same time, he wasn't surprised at all. This was just ordinary Siobhan. She would do this for the rest of her life and never look back.

He angrily turned the shower faucet to "Cold" and stepped inside. His plan just had to work, and when it did, Siobhan _Kelly _would be poorer than her sister had ever been. With all the evidence that he had against her for murder, kidnapping, and embezzlement, there would be no way for her to complain about the lack of alimony that she_ wouldn't_ be getting once she found herself divorced from Andrew. She would have no money whatsoever to hire a hit man or even to fight for custody of her daughters. Then, Henry would go to the police and throw the evidence on her anyway. They would convict her, she would go to jail, and that would be the end of Siobhan.

When he had finished his shower, he came back down the stairs to join her on the couch, wearing a t-shirt and boxers, his usual pass for pajamas. Predictably, Siobhan was absorbed in the movie, but only taking tiny nibbles of popcorn. Of course. She had to regain her figure again soon, so she couldn't be pigging out now.

"You want some?" she asked, pushing the bowl toward him.

"No, thanks, Shiv. I'm good." Actually, he _was _pretty hungry, he realized. "I'm gonna get some yogurt." And some water. He had just realized that he hadn't drunk any after coming in from the heat.

He took a glass from the cabinet, filled it with ice, and took some water from the tap. Now for the yogurt. It wasn't his favorite food, but good enough. It was a healthy alternative to ice cream, at least, which he had desperately been craving all day. It was the heat's doing, most likely. He went to the refrigerator and chose one of those sixty-calorie raspberry ones. But, when he got back to the couch, he found the date on the top of the cup and realized that it had expired a month ago.

He sat motionless on the couch as the movie continued, enjoying the breeze from the ceiling fan. Before he knew it, he had dozed off and had to be poked awake by Siobhan's newly manicured fingers.

"Henry! Henry! Honey, wake up!"

He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes slowly, grunting when he found that his neck had a crick in it. Ouch.

"Is it over?" he asked groggily.

"No, silly. It's only the first commercial break."

Awesome. That meant over an hour and a half of torture left. Why did she always have to settle for such stupid movies? He could have been watching _Star Trek _right now. She snuggled up against him and clasped her hand with his. Her fingers were oddly greasy. That was when he noticed that she'd eaten almost the entire bowl of popcorn. It was down to its last few kernels.

So much for losing the pregnancy weight.

She started to play with his fingers. "I missed you all day."

"Yeah…I'm sorry." He rested his chin on top of her blonde hair. She had obviously taken a shower a few hours ago, as her hair was still damp and it smelled like that fancy shampoo that she made him buy. He had probably spent a thousand dollars in the past three days just from buying all her crap.

"It's alright. I understand." She smiled lovingly, now tracing the circles on his chest. A week ago, he would have been just fine with her doing so, but now it made him shiver uncomfortably. He could feel himself getting tense, and apparently, she felt it, too.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling ok?"

"Yeah, yeah…I'm just stressed about the boys is all." That wasn't a complete lie. His boys were his world and he had to get them back somehow. He was very worried about what would happen if he couldn't.

"It'll be fine. I'm sure it will. They'll find something," she said, giving him a firm kiss on the cheek. He smiled awkwardly, but turned his attention to the All State commercial on the screen. When would the commercials be over so she would concentrate on the movie again?

Suddenly, though, her demeanor changed and she looked up at him curiously, strangely. Something was on her mind. He didn't know what it was, but he hoped it wasn't more talk of hit men.

"Henry, speaking of kids…."

He tensed as sweat began to run down his back. No way! She could _not _be pregnant again! Didn't it at least take a month after having one baby to conceive another? It was something like that, and he hadn't bought her a pregnancy test. She had to be talking of something else.

"I was thinking…." She glanced at the TV and then back at him. "Do you…still want the girls?"

_What? _That was a very odd, not to mention, abrupt, question. Andrew would have the girls soon enough if all went well, but she had no way of knowing that. So, he had to be affirmative. He couldn't let it seem like he didn't want them.

"Of course, I do," he replied, feeling a lump rise in his throat. Why was she asking this, anyway? Did she really think he would grow to hate them because they weren't his? "Why?"

"Well…." There was a very long pause before she continued, such a long pause, in fact, that the movie had begun again before she spoke. This _had _to be important. "I was just thinking, you know…if you decided that you didn't want to keep them because they weren't yours or…they might be too much for us to handle or something, then…I would be fine with putting them up for adoption."

His heart stopped beating. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. A week ago she was absolutely fine with the kids and wouldn't dream of getting rid of them, and why would she? They were her children! She should have been fighting for them at all costs, not using him as an excuse to give them away.

"Why don't you want them anymore?" he finally asked.

"What do you mean?" she replied, just trying to look confused. She knew exactly what he meant. It was all in the eyes. And the face. She had blanched five shades whiter upon hearing his question. "I-I want them! I was just making sure that _you_ did."

Alright, if he wasn't angry enough before, he was now, and she wouldn't be able to deny it. Siobhan would never change and he knew it. She was born scum and a liar and she would die one. He grabbed the remote from the coffee table and roughly turned off the television.

"Look, Siobhan," he began through clenched teeth, not caring that she seemed like she was going to cry. Those were nothing more than crocodile tears as far as he was concerned. "I know you asked that because _you _don't want them! A mother who wanted her children wouldn't give a crap what anyone else thought! You obviously don't want them anymore! Why?"

But he already knew the answer to that. "It's because they're Andrew's, isn't it?"

She continued to turn paler, if that were even possible, as she wiped her hands on her robe nervously.

"Siobhan! Answer me!" If he'd had the courage to hit a woman, he would have smacked her clear in the face right there.

When she finally decided to speak, her words came out in a stutter. "N-n-no…not just because they're his. It's because they look like him! I mean," she put her face in her hands; "you've seen them! They look just like him!"

That was true. Andrew probably thought so, too. He didn't even need a paternity test, really, but, he might have gotten one anyway. He probably had, just to be safe. Henry didn't know for sure. He hadn't spoken to him since Friday night when he told him it was clear for him to go to the hospital.

"I mean, Henry, I am not going to spend the rest of my life looking at him! I can't!" She stormed off the couch and ran into the kitchen. He heard the refrigerator door open and then slam shut. There was the clinking of glasses and the pouring of liquid; the rest of the vodka and lemonade she had made earlier, most likely.

She came back to the couch, flustered and yelling. "I can't do it! I can't! You have to understand!"

Actually, no, he didn't have to understand at all. Dash and Becks were the spitting image of Gemma, with her red hair, her blue eyes, and while he never actually hated her, she wasn't someone he could say he liked. But, he would never get rid of those two children for anything in the whole world!

He gave Siobhan one last hateful stare and thudded upstairs, locking the door to his bedroom behind him.


	8. Good Girls

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! I hope you're all still there! I didn't get many reviews last chapter! I really hope I'm not starting to bore you! Actually, the story should start to speed up in the next chapter or so, so please stay with me! Bridget and Andrew are going to meet in Chapter 10, just so you know! Stay tuned! Thank you!

Love,

May

PS: "Rabbit Resource Center" is an actual shelter and they have chapters all over the country, in case anyone is wondering. And if you can't already tell by the word count, this is by far the longest chapter I've ever done. Hopefully, the rest won't be as long.

**Chapter Eight: Good Girls**

Tuesday. Rock Springs, Wyoming.

If the producers of CSI ever decided to do a series in Wyoming, Erin wondered how the ratings would be. Given Rock Springs' history, which included a huge race riot against the Chinese in the late eighteen hundreds and corrupt police force in the nineteen seventies, writers might be able to come up with a lot stories involving unresolved bigotry and such, and maybe something about a case surrounding coal miners, but frankly, that was about it. To Erin, at least, Rock Springs was about as boring as watching paint dry.

That was one of the reasons why she wanted to become a criminal justice major: to get a job that would allow her to move out of the state. Originally, she had wanted to be a dentist, but found halfway through her first semester that crimes were her passion, and changed her major presently. Now, she had the wonderful opportunity to spend the entire semester in a crime lab. It had been interesting so far. "Fun" might have been the right word to describe it had the job not required looking at a bunch of dead people, and to call anything like that "fun" felt a bit disrespectful to her. These people had died horrible deaths, so she didn't have the right to treat her job like a sport.

She arrived at the crime station at around eight o'clock in the morning, her favorite time of day because it was never too hot or too cold, and the grass was always fresh with a dew that made the air smell nice. The lab was a two-story stucco building (white, of course) that actually looked like a doctor's office at first glance, at least in the entrance way, which was very similar to a waiting area, what with carpeted chairs and a TV. There was even a fish tank full of Oscars and some ugly thing that was dead set on eating Erin someday. Every time she walked by the tank, its eyes went angry and it opened its mouth as wide as possible. She didn't know who would actually use this room, as there was never anyone waiting, and why would there be? What would they have to wait for? A detective or a police officer might have to wait, she supposed. But still. Like they would actually take the time to watch TV.

There were already about five people there, all looking as if they would rather be somewhere else, all except Steve. He was the head of the whole lab and always looked forward to digging into the next batch of bodies that were brought from the morgue to be examined. As a crime lab, all of the bodies that were received were either suspected or known to be murdered or thought to have died under mysterious circumstances. Erin had been fascinated by forensics ever since she was fifteen years old and had watched an episode of "Forensic Files" on CourtTV. She knew right then that she wanted to be some sort of medical examiner. You could learn so much from a dead body.

Most of her friends thought she was crazy when she decided to change her major, that she would wind up as a serial killer herself someday, but she ignored them. Solving crimes was her passion and she would do it until the day she died.

Steve greeted her with enthusiasm as she walked through the door.

"Gooood morning, Gin!" he said in his usual sing-song drawl. Erin had to guess he was in his mid-forties, as he still had a young face, but quite a few wrinkles, not to mention three teenagers. He called her "Ginny" due to her red hair and freckles, like the character from the _Harry Potter _series. Personally, though, Erin felt like she looked more like Pippy Longstocking or even Wendy from the burger restaurant, but whatever. She didn't mind.

"Morning Steve," she waved at him. "How are you?"

"Great! We finally got a DNA sample from that guy's sister. Machado's gonna be happy. He's on his way."

"Yeah, definitely," Erin replied as she followed Steve into the back room. Now, Agent Machado was a fine man if Erin had ever seen one. She had dubbed him her "office crush," a guy that she would admire from afar but that was that. He was probably far too old for her, anyway, but it didn't matter as long as she could look. He was a tall Latino guy, American, but fluent in Spanish, as she had heard him use the language on the phone several times, and he had the most amazing eye trait she had ever seen: built-in eyeliner! Ok, so they were really just abnormally thick, _very _dark eyelashes, but they sure did look like eyeliner. Several people around the lab had made jokes about it and no doubt he got a lot of cracks at the police station, probably everywhere he went. But, he was beyond obsessed with this one mob guy who'd been knocked off a few weeks earlier and was trying to round up the rest of his gang, in addition to finding every victim the guy had ever had, including this one. Erin didn't know how much luck he was having.

The back area of the building was where all the action was. All the bodies were located there. Sometimes it was creepy, but Erin always made sure someone else was with her when she was in there. The room was kept very cool, as the bodies had to remain as much in their original condition as good as possible, as one problem could throw off the entire case. She walked into the locker room and hung up her jacket in her own little stall, taking out her freshly dry cleaned lab coat and putting it on. Then, she had to put her hair back in a pony tail, of course. Long, loose hair was a no-no in the labs, despite what TV shows might show.

For most of her time in the lab, Erin was given the task of aiding the coroners in whatever they needed. Scalpels, paper, cleaning supplies, and the like. She thought herself more of a maid than anything else, really, but at least she was always able to see the bodies. Sometimes the examiners, the nice ones, at least, like Steve, would allow her to give a diagnosis on the victim to see how well she understood injuries. She couldn't wait until she would be able to solve a crime on her own.

The latest body she had seen had been in the lab since Thursday. It had come all the way over from New York on the suspicion that the victim was from Wyoming, or at least, the murderers were. There had been no reports of any native New Yorkers matching the body's description at all, so Erin guessed that since a guy from Wyoming was missing, they assumed it had to be him and shipped it to the most boring state in the country. She didn't really see how where the victim was from mattered, as she had always thought that the place of death was where the body was supposed to stay. But, apparently that wasn't the case here. Anyhow, the body was that of a black male, but that was about all they could determine. It had been found floating in a ravine in Hoboken, the teeth extracted, and the hands and feet cut off. So, there was no possibility for dental records or fingerprint analysis. In New York, they had tried matching the facial structure with the man known to be missing, but that had come up inconclusive, as parts of the skull were broken. All that was left was DNA analysis, but the supposed man had none on file in Wyoming, so police had spent the last week trying to track down the man's known relatives for a sample. Now, it seemed that they had finally found someone. Judging it took from the amount of time to find someone, the guy must have not been very thick with his family.

Steve walked to a file cabinet in the back and held up an envelope from the top of it, taking out a tiny test tube.

"She sent in a blood sample. Even put her name on the vile."

Where would she have gotten a vile from? Maybe they'd sent her one.

Erin nodded. "But what if it's not a match? Does the body get sent back to New York?"

"Probably." Steve replied. "I know. It seems like a waste of an airplane, but that's what they decided to do."

It wasn't the airplane that Erin was concerned about. If the guy were alive, he would get very annoyed with getting shipped back and forth around the country. His spirit was probably just as angry.

"Could you do me _huge _favor and give this to Martha? We already took a sample from him, so they're ready for testing."

"Sure." Erin was always eager to help out in some way, even if it was just delivering items from one lab to another. She was at least showing subordination, but she still wished that she could solve a crime herself. Of course, that would take a few years, even after she got out of school and got a degree, she would be babied until they thought she was ready.

She took the vile and walked out the back door, up the stairs, and through an array of doors before she finally came to a windowless door marked "DNA Lab: Authorized Personnel Only." Was she authorized? She had no idea what it even meant, so she decided to play it safe and knock on the door. While she was waiting for Martha to appear, she read the writing on the side of the tube. It was messy cursive, barely readable.

"Nellie Ward Sorenson," she was finally able to make out. Erin knew the supposed dead guy's name was Malcolm Ward and, apparently, he had been a computer science professor at her college for some time, before leaving for New York in September. She wondered how his sister felt about hearing that the police might have found her brother's body. If they hadn't talked much before, would it really have an impact on her? Hopefully. A death in the family was still a death in the family, after all.

After about what felt like thirty minutes of knocking, Martha finally opened the door, looking composed in her cherry lip-gloss and white lab coat that wasn't doing her figure any good.

"Have something for me, sweetie?" she asked pleasantly, as she always did. It was a very convincing mask to her agitation.

"Yeah," Erin replied, wetting her lips with her tongue. It was embarrassing, but her braces always dried her lips out. She couldn't help it. "It's Malcolm Ward's sister's DNA sample."

Martha's green eyes lit up. "Oh good!" she said. "Finally something to work with on that guy."

"At least you didn't have to wait fifty years for one," said Erin. That would have been a lot worse.

"True, true." Martha took the vile and was about to close the door when she said, "tell Steve the results should be ready by Thursday if all goes well. Don't let him get his hopes up, but I'm doing the best I can."

"Thursday?" Erin repeated. "Doesn't it usually take, like, two weeks to get the results back?"

"Not anymore," Martha said, smiling, as though she had come up with the technology herself. But, Erin could tell she wanted her to leave. "Now get going. I've gotta get started."

"Yes, ma'am. Have a good day!" Erin smiled and hurried down the stairs before Martha decided to go on a rant about how much work she had to do. She literally did the same speech every day, and Erin didn't need to hear it a one hundredth time.

* * *

New York, New York

Juliet had been probably been stirring her mashed potatoes for ten minutes, but she didn't have much of an appetite for lunch. It was her last day in the detention center and she had so much on her mind: Bridget and her pregnancy, seeing her father again, where her life would go from there. She didn't know how she felt. It was everything at once: happiness, fear, sadness, anger. Absolutely everything. There was so much going on, and Connie had reared her head and started chatting about books that Juliet had never even heard of. But, she had to admit that she had grown to like Connie a bit during the past week, as she _was_ very friendly and optimistic, much like London Sheridan, and had given her someone to talk to during her time in this dreary place. Eventually, she had accepted her address and had promised to come hang out once Connie was able to come home, which was in about a month. That is, if Andrew let her leave the house. She was worried that after her community service was up, he would either ground her for life or make her get a job at McDonald's, since, honestly, that was about all she was good for.

When Connie finally stopped chatting to take a bite of her sandwich, Juliet stole a glance at the clock on the wall above them. It was just large enough for her to see. 1:15. In fifteen minutes, everyone had their afternoon activities. Yesterday, Juliet had finally gotten a break from that horrible psychiatrist and had instead spent most of the afternoon in a group with other girls, talking about their issues and why they were in jail in the first place. That had probably helped her more than anything else, as she was finally noticing a new side to crime. Not everyone who committed crimes were bad people. Like Bridget, sometimes they were lost and buried in the sorrows of their past. Like Juliet, sometimes they just snapped and lost control. Not all of them were evil, demented, and crazy like her mother.

She took a bite of her ham sandwich. It was a bit dry, but still better than her peas, which were cold and mushy by now.

"So you're leaving tonight?" Connie asked, slurping her milk from the carton, much like Andrea did with those cans of Minute Maid she always drank. She was trying to sound nonchalant, but it wasn't working. The sadness in her voice was peaking through. Juliet wondered if she had anyone else to talk to in here. She hadn't ever seen anyone with her.

"Yep. Probably around seven or eight, or whenever my dad gets off work. It's usually later than that."

She took another bite of her sandwich, but still didn't feel hungry. It was almost time to leave anyway.

"Well…I'm gonna miss you," Connie said, pulling her brown hair back in a bun. "I know I'm probably really annoying to you, but I hope you keep in touch."

"Why wouldn't I?" asked Juliet. "You gave me your address. I'll write to your parents and tell them how nice you are."

Some people were overly modest, so much so that they never thought highly of themselves in the least, and Connie was definitely one of those people. She needed some encouragement.

"Oh thank you!" she smiled. "They'll be happy to hear from someone else about my behavior besides me. They think I'm nuts."

"No way." Juliet knew nuts and Connie didn't fit the bill at all. If anything, she was nothing more than a bibliophile.

The bell rang and everyone filed out to leave the dining hall. Just as she and Connie reached the heavy wooden doors, Juliet was stopped by an officer.

"You're Juliet Martin, right?" The fat woman asked. Why did cops always have weight problems? If anything, they should have been thin with all the chasing they had to do.

"Yeah, I'm her." Juliet said, hoping she wasn't in trouble. She had put her tray in the right spot. She had cleaned her side of the table. Did she forget something?

"Your father's here. He's come to take you home."

"What?" she asked. Why would he be coming so early? He usually worked all day. "He's here _now_?" Then again, didn't they usually have set times for people to leave prison? Maybe the judge had decided on a time and Andrew couldn't get out of it. Juliet wouldn't know what they had discussed, as she was deemed incompetent to stand before a judge, but it was fine with her.

"Yeah," the woman affirmed. "Let's go get your stuff."

Juliet said "Goodbye" to Connie and broke away from the crowd, following the officer up the stairs to collect her things. Luckily, she didn't have much.

As she walked down the stairs toward the front office, her whole body was inflicted with a horrible itch, one that had been bothering her off and on since Saturday evening. Come Sunday morning, she woke to find that she had scratched herself raw. At first, she thought it might have been bug bites, but now she was betting on that crappy body soap she had been forced to use. It had to be some kind of allergic reaction. Whatever it was, she had never itched this badly since she had had the chicken pox in first grade and she had to take oatmeal baths. Maybe she could take one when she got home, provided her father would let her. She would probably have to ask his permission for everything from now on.

When she finally made it to the front office, she was still scratching and moving awkwardly, and wasn't sure if she was supposed to look Andrew in the eye or not or even acknowledge his presence. There weren't any set rules, obviously, but any wrong move on her part might send him over the edge. So, she decided to look at the floor or at the duffel bag around her shoulder until he acknowledged her. Then, she would look at him.

"Hello, Juliet." He finally spoke after what felt like an eternity. How long had they even been standing there?

"Hi Daddy," she said. She looked up at him, not noticing anything out of the ordinary about him, except for the fact that he wasn't wearing his usual business attire, but instead jeans, a jacket, and some brown sneakers. Maybe he had decided to take the whole day off.

Stepping out into civilization after a week was quite a change. The sounds of the cars honking noisily on the street had once been very annoying to her, but now she was almost grateful to see and hear them. The temperature had cooled quite a bit. It was probably around fifty degrees now. Something like that. Not too hot, not too cold. She just hoped it would stay that way.

She looked around for the limo until she saw Andrew hailing a cab. That was odd. He never took cabs. Maybe the limo was getting cleaned or something. Juliet wasn't all that fond of cabs, either. They were always so dirty and smelly. She would rather walk a thousand miles any day. Sure enough, when she stepped inside, she found pieces of food, used take out-bags, and plastic cups littered on the floor. There were even crumbs on the seat. Yuck! She brushed them off with the back of her hand before sitting down. She continued to itch and scratch like a wild animal infested with flees. The awkward silence that took hold of the cab when it began to move didn't help the situation at all. She turned her head toward the window to at least pretend like she was looking at something.

Unfortunately, Andrew wasn't going to keep the cab silent for long.

"So how was it?" he asked. His voice was literally the only sound she could hear.

Suddenly, she felt afraid. Had he asked to see the surveillance footage, provided that there was any, to see who had come to visit her on Saturday? If so, he probably wouldn't be happy upon seeing Bridget. But, maybe if Juliet were able to explain everything Bridget had said, about staying with them because she knew they needed her, about how she truly did love them, maybe he would come to forgive her. She turned her head slowly toward him, trying to see if she could decipher whether or not he actually knew about Bridget or whether he was actually curious as to how she fared in there. Well, no doubt he was curious and wanted to know what she had been through, regardless of Bridget. He had paid for her to stay in there. It would be a waste for her to come out without learning anything.

"It was fine," she said, still looking at him cautiously. It didn't seem like he knew anything, but knowing Andrew, if he did know something, he wouldn't wait for Juliet to tell him about it. "I had a lot of exercise." _So much that I'm never exercising _again_. _She would go home and fall face down in her own comfy bed. "And I met a few girls. I think I have a better understanding of bad stuff now."

"Bad stuff" was dumb, but it sounded a lot more American and teenagery than "criminal activity." She didn't want to lose her careless attitude.

He looked at her oddly, as if he didn't quite understand. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, like, not all people who do bad stuff are actually bad. A lot of them are just misunderstood." She wondered if that would get him to think about Bridget. "And…I know _never _to lose my temper like that again. That's for sure."

He nodded in his British way. "I'm sorry I had to do that, but you needed some real punishment and that was the worst I could think of."

The worst he could think of. Yeah, it probably was, and honestly, she was long overdue for it. She lost count of the number of times her principals had threatened jail time due to drug possession, so this was finally getting what she deserved. Now, she finally understood that she couldn't get away with everything and that she couldn't do whatever she wanted. She had to learn from her mistakes. She had to be clear-headed and change her life. In other words, she had to be like Bridget.

"It's ok," she finally said. "I understand." She scratched at her arms irritably, and then her stomach, and then her legs. Finally, she had to stop before Andrew scolded her for scratching herself in an inappropriate area. She resorted to making an attempt at sitting on her hands, only to find that there were still crumbs on the seat.

"Can I take an oatmeal bath when I get home?" she asked, wanting to put the whole jail thing behind her and just start over, even though Andrew obviously wasn't one to give people clean slates. Besides, she didn't want to continue talking about her time in prison and make the cab driver think he was chauffeuring around some psycho chick.

"I doubt we have that kind of oatmeal," he said.

Then, she would just have to settle for slathering herself in lotion. It would be better than nothing.

Juliet wasn't the best when it came to distances (or anything having to do with math, for that matter), but after about fifteen minutes of riding in the cab, traffic jam included, she judged the detention center wasn't too far from Park Avenue, but that was all she could say. She had nearly failed physical science in eighth grade for not being able to judge a mile.

When they got out of the cab, Andrew unexpectedly took her hand. She was shocked, until she realized why he had done it: the security had been upgraded quite a bit since the last time she had been here, and judging from what one of the officers was now doing to a delivery man in front of them, Andrew didn't want to take any chances with the police thinking Juliet didn't live there. She suddenly felt thirty times guiltier about crying rape.

Walking into the lobby, she kept her head low, while trying her hardest to avoid scratching herself. It worked for about thirty seconds, before she couldn't stand it anymore, and ran to the elevator. Andrew was oddly quite. She had half-expected him to yell at her for making a scene in the lobby, but he didn't. It wasn't until after they had finally reached their own door, that he spoke.

"I have some cortisone cream if you want some, you know," he said as he locked the elevator behind him.

"I'm sure I have my own lotion, Daddy, thanks." She ran straight to the bathroom, but not before noticing the new look to the apartment. The floor was slicker, as though it had been newly polished and probably sanded, and there was a faint smell of paint. She wondered just how much damage that Macawi guy had caused.

Well, her bathroom seemed to be untouched as she flipped on the light. Her rose shower drapes were still hanging where she'd left them, and everything, save her toothbrush, was in place. She opened the cabinet underneath the sink, pushing aside all the make-up that she sorely missed to find her lotion. If she didn't get it on soon, she would have no skin left. But, a she stood up to take it back to her bedroom, she gave a slight glance in the mirror as to notice yet another horror: no less than thirty-five pimples had sprouted on her face during the night, but of course they would. She had spent the last week avoiding mirrors as much as she could for that very reason. She didn't have her usual acne cream or concealer with her at the center and she had been cursed with inheriting her mother's oily skin. Catherine had spent nearly a quarter of Andrew's alimony solely on visits to the dermatologist and whatever four thousand dollar skin care product that she could get her hands on. Juliet dove back underneath the cabinet to see if there was any more of that after-wash stuff, the third step in the process, that was supposed to get rid of pimples that were already there. She took everything out of the cabinet before she finally found the bottle…completely empty. She angrily through it in the trashcan and resorted to scrubbing her face until each pimple popped. By the time she was finished, she looked liked she had just been to a bad acupuncturist. Whatever. They would clot and dry in a few minutes.

She took her lotion back to her bedroom and smothered her body in the thick cream before changing into some cotton pajamas, not caring that it was barely after two-thirty in the afternoon.

She never thought being in her own room again would give her so much joy. It was almost normal. Her purple drapes, the pink wallpaper, even the little unicorn statue on her dresser that she had had for as long as she could remember. She wasn't in a torture chamber anymore. She pulled her grandmother's blanket out of her duffel bag and collapsed onto the downy bed, burying herself in the pillows.

She fell into a peaceful, unachievable world where everything was perfect. She was standing in front of her graduating high school class, the valedictorian, about to receive her diploma and a scholarship to Yale. In the front of the audience, she could see her father and Bridget sitting together, holding hands and smiling, a little baby balancing on Bridget's lab. Juliet's new boyfriend was hiding in the crowd somewhere, waiting to pop out and propose at any moment. Her speech was filled with her sorrows, her hopes, her thankfulness, and everything else that she had ever gone through to bring her to this point.

"Even though I'm not a big fan of country music, I can tell you that, like the lyrics to Lee Brice's song 'Love Like Crazy," just ask me how I made it and I'll tell you to pull up a seat, and I'll give you a story you won't believe. A story of passion, sadness, deceit, hardship, and happiness, all rolled into one."

That was just the beginning. She told of her own struggle with addiction, her issues with her mother, Bridget and her troubles, and ended it with the inspiration that Bridget had instilled in her.

By the time she had awoken, she could tell by the digital clock on her dresser that it was around eight o'clock at night. The sun was going down ever so slightly and the smell of a meal cooking reached her nostrils. She wondered if Andrew had actually done the cooking or if he had hired a chef, as she had never seen him cook in her life.

She pulled herself free from her tangled mass of blankets and decided as her feet hit the floor that it would be appropriate to brush her hair. She grabbed her brush from her duffel, as she had yet to unpack, and raked it through her thick hair, leaving it in a frizz. She couldn't wait to start using her Redkin again. That is, if Andrew allowed it. He was lucky in that his hair was ten times shorter than hers and didn't have the length enough to get frizzy.

Her itchy skin was easing finally, but she still wanted an oatmeal bath. It would be gone for good, then. She left her room and walked into the hallway, taking in the sight of the apartment at length this time. The ceiling had been redone and was apparently the source of the faint paint smell. Several antique vases were missing. Probably smashed to bits during the confrontation, and the balcony looked as if it had a new window put in. It must have been smashed, too. The couch in the living room look a bit beat up, but only if you looked really closely at it. There were boxes on Andrew's desk. He must have been cleaning out his office at work. Oh, and Siobhan's huge ego-maniac portrait was missing, which was a pity, because Juliet had been planning all week to play Robin Hood or _Hunger Games _with it and practice her archery. Other than that, the place looked like home.

Andrew was standing at the stove cooking something that involved two pots and something in the oven underneath, and talking on the phone with someone. It took Juliet a moment to realize that he was speaking Welsh. That meant he could only be talking to one of his relatives, either his parents or one of his four siblings, or maybe even an old school friend. Those were the only people he knew who spoke the language, and thus, he never lost an opportunity to use it with them.

He ended the call and continued cooking, stirring the largest pot. Juliet finally found her voice and spoke.

"Hi Daddy." The words came out hoarsely.

Andrew turned around and smiled weakly. It was obvious he still wasn't happy, but she didn't know if he ever would be again. His eyes went wide when he took her in. She wasn't surprised. She looked like a freak. No, she didn't just _look _like one. She _was _one. An awkward girl with frizzy hair and disgusting skin who had spent the last seventeen years trying to mask herself, literally and figuratively, to pretend like she had everything under control, and now she couldn't even do that.

"I know." She said. "I'm ugly."

He chuckled ruefully. "No, you're not ugly. You just need to wipe the blood off your face. You look like you've been shot with a bunch of dart guns."

She put her hand to her cheek. Yeah, she could still feel puss. Gross! How long would it take them all to dry out?

"Was that Grandma on the phone?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, it was. I'm sorry. I would have let you talk to her if I'd known you were there."

"It's ok," she said. "You didn't tell her about all my jail stuff, did you?"

"No…I didn't." He said. She couldn't tell if he was lying. "Are you hungry? Dinner's just about ready."

"Ok, cool." She sat down at the dining room table and waited for him to come. It wasn't until he was bringing the food over that she realized it would be more courteous of her to offer to help.

For a person who had rarely, if ever, cooked in his life, Andrew had done a pretty good job by Juliet's standards. Leek soup, a dish very popular in Wales, steamed broccoli, and roast. The roast was a bit too spicy, but other than that, the meal was good. She actually had an appetite to eat, which, really, she hadn't done much of in the past week. The atmosphere itself, however, was much like the ride in the taxi cab: awkward and quiet, with Juliet only speaking to complement her father's meal.

Afterward, full stomach and all, she quietly sat down on the sofa, wondering if she would be granted permission to turn on the television. She eyed the remote on the table, but Andrew didn't notice, as he was busy washing dishes, yet another thing she could have helped with.

"You know we need to talk."

His voice was scary, that low, British tone of his, oddly calm, but meaning business. It provided all the reasons for why Disney villains were always British. American dads could never pull off such a menacing tone, not without screaming their lungs out.

But, of course she knew they needed to talk. She had just been waiting for him to make the first move.

"Yeah, I do," she replied, keeping her back to him. She forgot about the TV and pulled her legs up on the couch, putting her head between them.

"But, before we do," he continued speaking, as if he hadn't heard her reply, and crossed the living room to his desk, where he kept all the mail. He came back with an envelope and handed it to her.

She knew what it was before she saw the address. It was court-ordered community service information. She took a deep breath and opened it. As she suspected, thirty hours of community service at—she did a double take a she saw the name—

"The Rabbit Resource Center?" She looked up at Andrew incredulously. "Is this a _joke_?"

"No," he replied, taking a seat next to her on the couch. "It's a _real_ place with _real _rabbits."

"Why did they choose this place? I've never even heard of it." Forget never _hearing_ about it. That fact was, never in a million and five years would Juliet ever think that someone would actually invest their time in building a shelter for rabbits. What happened to the woods? Were they getting cut down at such a rapid pace that rabbits didn't have places to burrow anymore? "Why couldn't they have assigned me to a dog shelter?"

"I don't know. It's just what they decided on. I guess the dog shelters were full."

Urgh! She looked down at the letter again. The address was, like, a million miles away upstate. Great.

"Do I have to take a bus?" she asked.

"Yes," he affirmed, as though the response couldn't have been more obvious, and she knew it couldn't, but the question had come anyway. "And according to this," he continued as he took hold of the letter and showed her the print, as if she couldn't read, "you have to be there from ten to five tomorrow."

She was about to protest, about to ask why she couldn't have a day to rest, when she remembered that she was technically a criminal, and they didn't deserve breaks.

"Ok. Whatever," she sighed.

Then, as she stared absently at the blank television in front of her, she happened upon an idea. Maybe she could get Bridget to come with her. That would bring them both some happiness. That is, if Bridget were feeling well. All the rabbits might make her sicker.

"Can I have my phone back?" she asked, trying as fast as she could to make up a good lie. "You know, in case I get lost tomorrow or something and I need you to come pick me up?"

"Sure," he said. "I'll give it back tomorrow before you leave."

That meant she would have to somehow sneak to the landline without him finding out. She had all of her phone numbers in a spare notebook just in case her phone broke or in case something like this happened and she had to secretly talk to someone.

"Ok," she said. There was yet another awkward silence. She didn't know what to do now. Did she just sit there and wait for him to talk about whatever it was they "needed" to discuss? She started picking at a loose string on the leg of her pajamas.

Before she knew it, Andrew started speaking again. "Look, Juliet—"

She couldn't handle it. She broke down and started crying.

"I know! I'm so sorry about Ellie!" she sobbed uncontrollably. "I know it was wrong! I just lost control. I'm really, really sorry."

But what could sorry do? It wouldn't help anything, but she kept going.

"I was so upset and angry…I just couldn't help it. I don't know how to make it up to you if that's even possible! I was so set on not hurting you ever again. I promised myself I wouldn't. You've been through so much crap that you don't deserve and I just made it worse." She buried her face in her hands. "I'm just as much of a disappointment as Mom and I tried so hard not to be. I don't know what came over me! I was just so mad."

She kept crying hysterically, salt caking into her open pimples, her face swelling to the size of a balloon. She didn't know what to do. Her life was ruined. Her father was no doubt ashamed of her. What else could she do?

Even as Andrew pulled her closer to him, she continued to cry.

"Juliet, please, honey." But she kept crying.

That was when he made her look at him. "Calm down!" he said sternly, grabbing her shoulders, his eyes flashing. "You are _not _like your mother, and you have _not _ruined my life."

"B-but—" she stuttered.

"No!" he said. "There aren't any excuses for what you did to Ellie, there was no reason for it, and you _will _apologize to her, but you are still nothing like your mother. Do you understand?" It must have been a rhetorical question, because he didn't wait for a response before continuing. "If anything, I hold myself partly responsible, and that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

She tried to breathe slowly and regain her composure. "What do you mean?" she finally asked when she had gotten the tears to stop. "You haven't done anything."

"Juliet," he began sadly, dismissing her claim, "it's no secret that I haven't always been there for you. In fact, I have been a terrible father, not giving you the attention or the love you need. I realize that now and I'm so sorry. I ignored all your problems and I never knew how to discipline you and…." He shook his head. "I'm so sorry. I want it to change. I do."

She wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. He hadn't been attentive, and he hadn't made much of an effort to help her with any of her real problems. He was probably regretting sending her to Juvie now.

"It's ok, Daddy." She rested her head on his chest. "I forgive you."

He sighed. "And I want you to know that I have never regretted having you."

That was abrupt. She looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he swallowed hard, frustrated with himself, "I never meant to neglect you. I never meant to leave alone with Catherine or brush all your problems under the rug. I never meant to. I didn't do it because I wanted you out of my life. You've always been a blessing to me. I know you must think I've treated you like a doll or…something that I can just play with when I want, but I'm so sorry. I don't want to do that anymore because I want you to know that I love you." His eyes grew misty. "Don't ever think for a second that I never wanted you. I may have been too young to have a child. I _know _I was too young, but I never saw you as a burden. I want to you understand that."

"I do, Daddy." She smiled weakly. "I love you. I always have, and I don't think I'm like a doll." She knew he never saw her as a burden. He just didn't know how to communicate with her. The doll comment wasn't exactly a lie, as she had felt like one, but just never around Andrew. He never treated her like something he could throw away, but rather something he could ignore because he didn't know how to deal with her problems. He had wanted to turn a blind eye to them and wish they would just go away. In his mind, she wasn't the problem. But the metaphor certainly fit Catherine's perception of her. Her mother had spent Juliet's entire life buying her the best accessories to make her look like the prettiest Barbie that there ever was, but as soon as an article of clothing didn't fit or something looked wrong or out of place on her, Catherine would be the brat. She would throw her little doll on the ground and shout insults at it, saying that it was messed up, that it had a flaw, that she wanted a new, better one that was perfect.

"I love you, too," he said, bringing her back from her thoughts and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

A surge of shock went through her as she remembered that he had a child growing in Bridget's belly and knew nothing about it. She wanted him to be a good father to that baby, too, and knew that he would have been, but she also knew that he wouldn't just accept that it was his right off the bat, not in the state that his and Bridget's relationship, or lack thereof, was in. (Although, Juliet had to admit she would be a bit skeptical if he refused to believe the child was his. She was _not _oblivious to the amount of sex the two of them had had in the past two months alone. Why, the weekend after Catherine had been sent to prison, they had spent the entire Saturday in bed. How did she know? She had heard giggling around eight o'clock that morning, promptly left the house for the rest of the day, and when she returned that night around ten, it was very evident, to say the least, that they were still busy.) She wanted so badly to tell him about the baby, but she had made a promise to Bridget that she wouldn't.

So, instead, she kept quiet, hoping in a way that the conversation would be over and they could just snuggle up on the couch and turn on the TV, like old times. Unfortunately, the conversation was just beginning.

"You do need to apologize to Ellie," he said, as if she had forgotten about it.

"I know," she said. "I will…in a while." In a _long_ while. She wanted to wait at least a month so that Ellie would have enough time to blow off steam, even though Juliet knew that no matter how long she waited, Ellie Wheaton would _never _forgive her.

"It needs to be soon, sweetheart."

"Why?" Now she was suspicious. She shifted from his arm and looked him straight in the eye, horrified. "Is her family pressing charges?"

"No," he replied, looking much more sad than he did relieved about it. "They were talking about it, but I was able to talk them out of it. We probably wouldn't have enough money to live on if they did."

She froze. What was _that _supposed to mean?

He must have seen the question in her face, because he answered. "I...lost my job, Juliet."

So that explained it: why he had come to collect her from the center so early, why he had been dressed so casually, why they had taken a taxi instead of their limo, and why there were so many boxes on his desk. Was that why he had been talking to his parents? Were they going to have to move to Cardiff? What would happen to Bridget and the baby? They couldn't be left behind….

She was in shock. She didn't know what to say or how to react. Until she realized….

"How did you lose it? Weren't you the boss?"

He sighed and shook his head. "It was getting to be rough without Olivia, so…I let someone else take over and…eventually, he decided he didn't need me anymore...I'm doing the best I can. I'm trying to look for work elsewhere and…I've put the house in the Hamptons up for sale, but I don't know how much money that'll bring in or for how long."

"That's fine," she said hurriedly. They didn't need a stupid beach house when they had Bridget and the baby to think about. "I never liked that stupid house anyway." Ok, that was an unnecessary lie, because it was so obvious not to be true, but she didn't care. "I mean, we just can't leave New York. This is my home and all my friends are here! I love Grandma and Grandpa, but really, what is there to do in Cardiff?"

That was another lie. There was beyond plenty to do there, and Juliet found it quite fun. In fact, she would have been happy to leave if Bridget were coming. Her grandparents had plenty of room in their house for all of them, a new little beagle that apparently loved kids, as was evident in Grandma's Facebook album she posted last month, and Grandma and her friends absolutely loved babies more than life itself. They had even started their own sewing club specifically for newborns, knitting, like, forty blankets a week, and bunch of those little sock-booty things.

"I never said we'll have to move to Cardiff," he said. "But if I happened to get a job there, then, yes we would. Right now, though, I'm trying to focus on finding one in New York so that we wouldn't have to…because I know you wouldn't like it."

"Can't we just move out of this house and then find a really cheap apartment until you can find a new job?" That would still work. If they were to rent an eight thousand-dollar-a-month apartment in the city, then they would be saving a lot of money, especially when they sold the beach house.

"Yeah, that's what I meant. I'm looking into that," he replied. "It's our first option, actually."

"Good!" she said, a little too happily, but she couldn't help it. She didn't care where they lived as long as she could stay within a taxi ride of Bridget. That was the most important thing. She scolded herself inwardly for spending all of her life thinking so much about her face and hair. "Then, there's nothing to worry about."

"But, that's not all I wanted to say." Andrew took his Blackberry out of his pocket. "I'm also divorcing Siobhan."

Oh, right. Siobhan was alive. Somehow Juliet had forgotten, but it didn't matter as soon as she realized what that meant. With Andrew and Siobhan legally divorced, he could marry Bridget…as soon as she became his girlfriend again. There was the dead end.

She tried to sound optimistic anyway. "That's good! It won't cost a lot, right?" Of course it would. Siobhan would try to suck every penny out of him.

"Well, yes it will. Just to have a divorce costs so much, but I've been talking to a lot of lawyers in the past few days, trying to find a policy that will let me off with spending as little as possible," he continued, looking solemn. "But, it's not looking too good right now. I thought about turning her in first, but I would much rather divorce her before that."

She looked at him, confused. "Why wait? Why _not _turn her in first?" If Siobhan really was a criminal, why wouldn't he just do that first? Once she was convicted, he wouldn't have to worry about alimony. But, of course, there were issues with that, too. Juliet had heard of a few cases where psycho wives of men had been put in prison and it had taken years for a divorce to happen. Like that lady who drowned her kids in Texas. London, ever the source for any murder case, had said it took her husband three years to get a divorce.

"Well…I went back and forth on it," he replied, running his hand through his hair tiredly. "I want her put in jail." He gestured as if he were discussing it with himself. "She deserves it. She's crazy. She's heartless, and so many other things that I don't even know. But, that's all the more reason why I don't want to be bound to her when she goes to prison. I would have to stick by her during the trial and the threat of divorce might impact the outcome. So, I decided I would get the divorce first."

She nodded. "But, what has she done to deserve prison?" Juliet knew that Siobhan had wanted Bridget dead, but idle talk certainly wasn't enough to put her behind bars.

"What hasn't she done?" he asked, rhetorically, looking almost appalled that Juliet would ask such a question, but he must have remembered that she didn't know the half of it, because his face softened. "Henry…came here on Friday and told me more than I was prepared for, but at the same time, I think I should have suspected it…."

Ok, so what did that mean? "Yeah?"

"He told me that she'd used a fake ID and opened up some false accounts at Martin/Charles while she was in Paris. I didn't believe him at first, but it scared me all the same, so I asked our secretary if she had any records from anyone in Paris. This was after I was fired, so I couldn't go the office and see, but I called her and she looked them up for me."

"And he was telling the truth?" She was shocked, not that it was surprising that Siobhan had taken out money, but more so than Henry had actually had the balls to be honest and tell someone about it.

Andrew nodded. "Yeah, she did it under a false name…the same one he said she used."

"So she must have hurt him pretty bad, too?" That would be the only reason Henry would break his silence. He must have been pissed, or at least he had come to realize that his girlfriend wasn't the perfect flower he thought she was.

"Well, she did kill his wife." His tone was almost nonchalant, as though there wasn't anything in the world that Siobhan could do that would surprise him, but it certainly scared Juliet. Her mouth dropped open.

"What?" But wait…. "Didn't they say a guy killed her? Gemma, I mean?" Juliet had tried not to pay attention during the search for Gemma Butler, as she didn't know her well at all, and didn't want to get attached to the commotion, but she remembered the details clearly when the police finally found her body, bullet through her head, near a warehouse, next to some dead guy they thought had been holding her captive.

"Of course, they did, and he might have literally killed her, but Henry said he thinks she was behind the whole kidnapping thing. She knew the guy. There's security footage with the two of them together, so I'm at least willing to have her arrested under _suspicion_ of murder."

It was horrible, but it made complete sense. She would want her lover's wife dead. Any mistress would, just as much as any wife would want the mistress dead, really. Just like Catherine. They were _so _much alike.

"That's awful," she was able to scrape out of her throat after a while. She looked out toward the terrace, not sure what she was feeling. She had always known Siobhan was an evil stepmother, but, the one in "Cinderella" had absolutely nothing on her. It wasn't clear how long she and her father had been sitting there on the couch, but it was long enough for a bird to make an entire nest on the balcony, because there certainly wasn't one there earlier.

"And what's worse…Siobhan has twins."

Her heart stopped as Andrew's words wrenched her from her thoughts. How much shock could she get in one day?

"What?" she almost fell off the couch, when she remembered the "miscarriage" last year that Bridget had supposedly suffered. Of course, Siobhan had been pregnant. "But…they're Henry's…right?"

She knew she wouldn't be asking that if she really thought the answer was "yes." Her heart had never accelerated so fast in her life. _Oh no! _

He shook his head. "He had a paternity test done. It turns out they're not."

He had said it. But, oddly, as the information soaked in, Juliet found that she felt, if not happy, then proud to hear her father's words. After all, having babies that weren't Henry's was as a slap in Siobhan's face. All those days of sleeping with him and it didn't get her anywhere. What a pair of losers! A smile almost curled on her lips. Almost, until a more serious realization hit her: and this one was positively awful, because if Siobhan's babies were indeed his, then that meant Andrew would have three babies in a year! How crazy was that? There was no way he could know about the third one now! He would go absolutely insane, have a complete nervous breakdown! Was there a way the news could be broken to him without sending him to the hospital in shock? Huh, if only. The answer was no. She might very well been correct in her assumption that damaged arteries could re-severe themselves from stress. If not, then Andrew's would probably be the first to do so when all of this came to light. Besides, having children meant some sort of custody settlement, didn't it? Well, if Siobhan were going to jail eventually, then the twins wouldn't matter. Andrew would get full custody of them regardless of whatever happened with the divorce first. But what about Bridget's baby? If they didn't get back together, how would they share custody?

"He said they were still in intensive care," Andrew continued, "so I went to the hospital on Friday to see if he was telling the truth, and I found them."

"Why are they in intensive care? Weren't they full term?" she asked. Or no, maybe they weren't. Seven months? September through April, or had they been conceived in August? She didn't know. She had been in boarding school all last year.

"Eight months," he said. "They were conceived in July. But they both had respiratory problems, and one of them had a bladder infection." This concerned him. The look in his eyes told Juliet that he was in deep thought, eyes still misty, more so now. He was probably worrying if the girls would need special care for the rest of their lives. It was too sad, and seemed to be getting more so as the seconds ticked by. "I had the test done. We should know if they're mine in a few days."

The reason why he had pulled out his Blackberry. He brought it closer to her and scrolled over to his photos. A brown-haired baby in an incubator was staring back at her.

"This is Regan." And another. "And this is Portia."

The paternity test was nothing but a waste of four hundred dollars. It was well beyond obvious that the little girls looking back at her were Andrew's.


	9. Whoops: A Slip Down the Rabbit Hole

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! So, this is probably going to be the last update for a while, because school is starting and I'll have that and work to deal with. But, who knows? I may be able to sneak some time in like I did in Belgium. But, don't worry! This story WILL BE FINISHED! I am NOT going to be one of those people who abandon stories, never to touch them again. I cannot do that to Ringer, but feel free to give me suggestions for future chapters and guesses about what might happen next. I think I'm leaving it at a pretty good spot.

Love,

May

**Chapter Nine: Whoops: A Slip Down the Rabbit Hole **

Wednesday.

The alarm clock on Bridget's nightstand was no doubt one of the most annoying, because it wasn't the average "beep, beep, beep" sound, but rather one of those crazy techno noises that sounded like a laser light moving up and down a pipe. A low grunt escaped her mouth as she dragged her hand to the clock, feeling around for the pesky button. Being in such an early stage of pregnancy—or even being pregnant at all—gave her every excuse to stay curled up in her comfy bed all day. But, she had promised Juliet she would help her with her community service. She was feeling well enough, and the good thing about volunteering was that she could take breaks if she started feeling sick. Besides, she needed to start her resume if she was ever going to get a job, and volunteering was the best place to start when there were no current job openings available.

As she opened her eyes, her mind wondered back to Andrew. It seemed like he was always in her head now. She wondered what he was doing, how he was feeling, if she was on his mind as much as he was on hers. Juliet had called London's cell around three o'clock that morning using her Park Avenue landline to ask if Bridget would come with her to the "Rabbit Resource" center upstate later that day. She said she had had to wait to call so early in the morning to make sure Andrew was asleep when she did it, so that told Bridget that he still wasn't keen on having Juliet interact with her, not that she thought he would be. After all the lies, drug issues, and everything else that had messed up Bridget's life, Andrew had every reason for her _not_ to be around his daughter.

She rose up slowly and dragged her feet to the floor. Ugh! It was so hard to get up nowadays, but she knew harder days were on their way. According to the OBGYN, her stomach wouldn't start growing until around four or five months, so that meant that by then she would need a crane to get out of bed. She wondered what she would look like in her eighth month. Would she have gained thirty pounds?

_Ugh! _She scoffed at herself for thinking about something so meaningless. She shouldn't be giving a crap about her weight. The _baby _was the most important thing, and if she had to gain hundred pounds to keep it healthy, then she would. She finally got up out of bed and started rummaging for clothes to put on. Her biggest issue now was explaining everything to Andrew. Would it be better to wait until her stomach actually showed before telling him? That way, he would know that she was at least telling the truth about being pregnant. She knew she couldn't wait until after the baby was born, though. That would be pure cruelty.

_God! _Tears were welling up behind her eyes, the first in a few days. It was so frustrating! All she wanted for was for him to accept her for her. Then, they could marry, grow old together, have many more children, and just be a happy couple. That was all she wanted. A part of her had been nagging in the back of her head for a while, telling her to drop him, to have the baby and find someone else, but she couldn't do that. There was no other man for her and she couldn't conceal a baby from its father. It wasn't right. So she decided to hold on. It hadn't even been two weeks since they last spoke. He needed more time alone. Maybe by the time she told him about the baby, he would come around. Maybe….

She rubbed her eyes and finally found a pair of jeans and an old t-shirt from her Wyoming days that she could wear. Maybe denim wasn't the best thing for cleaning cages, but it was all she had, besides a pair of old pajama pants, but she needed those to sleep in. She would just need to be careful when she cleaned.

She brushed her hair and walked out into the living room and into the kitchen, where she found London eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

"Good morning," the teenager said happily. "Want some cereal?" She waved the box.

"No thanks, honey," Bridget said. The combination of milk and cereal wasn't doing her stomach much good now. "I'll just have a bagel."

She walked over to the counter, grabbed a pre-sliced bagel, and placed it in the toaster. As it was cooking, she rummaged through the refrigerator for the strawberry cream cheese she liked so much.

"Dad left, like, ten minutes ago and he said it was fine if I went to the shelter with you," London commented. "But, we better leave before Mom gets up. She might get mad."

The bagels popped up from the toaster. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to skip school," Bridget said as she finally found the cream cheese. It had been thrown in the back behind the salad from last night. "You were already absent once last week."

As soon as Juliet had called and said her community service was to be at a rabbit shelter, London went ballistic. Rabbits were by far her favorite animal in the world and to hear that there was a place with nothing _but _rabbits made all of her sense go out the window. She was determined to go and see this place, even if it meant skipping school. Bridget pulled out a plate from the cupboard and carefully pulled out the bagels from the toaster. They were just right.

"So?" London said through a bite of cereal. "I'm on the Principal's Honor Roll and I don't have anything special going on today. My physics test was yesterday and my lit project's not due till Monday and I'm already three-quarters of the way finished. Mom'll understand."

Bridget rolled her eyes as she smeared some cream cheese on her breakfast. No, she wouldn't. Greer didn't tolerate playing hooky under any circumstances. Not even if her daughter was at the top of the class. In fact, that was all the more reason why she wouldn't want London to skip.

"You know she won't," Bridget said.

She turned around to see London frowning. "Not even if I begged? Besides, it's Juliet's first day and I'm sure she'd want a friend."

"That's why I'm coming," Bridget replied as she sat down.

"Still. I already picked out my t-shirt." London stood up and pulled her shirt down to show Bridget just what was on it: "I heart (a cartoon heart with a feathered arrow through it) my rabbit." "I know she'll give in if I'm annoying enough. I don't beg for much, anyway. I just want to do this one thing really, really, _really _bad."

"You don't have a rabbit, though," Bridget countered, taking a bite of her bagel.

"That's the point," said London. "This would be the best place to get one. Adopting animals is so much nicer than getting them from a pet store, anyway, 'cause, you know, they're taken care of a lot better because people actually want to help them and most of them have been abused and stuff, so they need nice little homes to make them feel better. And it's way cheaper."

She sprinted over to the living room and returned with her Taylor Lautner-infested laptop. The Sheridans must have had some pretty good Wi-Fi connection because in less than thirty seconds, the computer was loaded and London was typing away. That, or London had already been on the computer this morning. Bridget really wouldn't have been surprised if she had been awake since Juliet called, googling "rabbit shelters" to see what she could find.

"See?" she turned it around to show Bridget the "Rabbit Resource" website. "It costs seventy-five dollars to adopt a bunny here, compared to, like, two hundred dollars at the pet store, and I've already picked out some favorites. That's why I have to go today so they can hold them for me."

"_Who's_ holding _what_ for you?" Greer appeared around the corner dressed in silky pink pajamas, her auburn hair tangled and frizzed. She walked over to the counter to prepare the coffee maker. "Good morning, Bridget," she said.

"Morning." That was all Bridget had time to say before London spilled the beans.

"Mom, Juliet called at, like, three o'clock this morning and wanted Bridget to go to community service with her, right? But guess where it is?" But she wasn't intending on a response, as she gave the answer straight away. "A rabbit shelter!"

Greer was in the middle of putting a coffee filter in the machine. "Yeah? So? What's that got to do with you?"

Bridget watched with amusement, chewing on her crunchy bagel, as London scowled behind her mother's back and joined her in the kitchen, walking in her typical ballerina-like fashion, tiny movements of her feet that carried her fast. Bridget always found it hilarious that she was able to walk like that all the time. No wonder she was so small.

"Well, duh, Mom. It means I wanna go, too!" she whined as she reached the counter, pouty lips and all, a bit too dramatic to be convincing. She sounded as much like a girl trying to squeeze a pair of tickets to a Jonas Brothers concert out of her mother as she did a girl wanting to volunteer at a shelter. "Dad said it was fine, and I don't have anything important going on at school today. Plus, Juliet really needs a friend now and I've always loved bunnies, and this way, I'll have volunteer work for my resume. You always say I need to do something productive!"

"Going to school is productive," Greer replied. "You can go to the shelter on the weekend."

Freshly brewed coffee could be heard pouring into the pot, making Bridget a bit nostalgic. For one thing, she loved coffee and tea and was very saddened by the fact that she couldn't drink them during her pregnancy. Caffeine wasn't good for babies. But, she had also spent some wonderful days on Park Avenue making Andrew's coffee in the mornings. He had been very pleased, and of course, surprised, the first time she had offered to do it. But after a while, it had become a pleasant morning, and weekend afternoon, routine for her. On Saturday and Sundays, the two of them usually had "tea time," a relaxing afternoon moment where they could just sip tea and coffee and enjoy each other's company. She missed that.

"But Moooom," London's drawl brought her back to the present. The teenager was now leaning on the counter, "this isn't just about me wanting to get bunnies! Juliet really needs a friend right now. If I just go this one time, I promise I won't do it again. This'll just be special! Please?"

Greer was emptying sweetener into her coffee cup, trying her best to ignore London. Unfortunately, her daughter wasn't having it.

"Moooom!"

"No!" She walked away from her daughter as if she were a puppy pestering her for something to eat, taking her coffee with her.

"But Mom! I promise it'll only be just this once. I swear." Bridget had never seen London be so persistent about anything. "Please!"

Greer slammed her coffee down on the table. "Alright! Alright!" That was a shock. London was right. She was a very convincing when she wanted to be. "You can go, but _just this once._"

It was without a doubt the loudest scream Bridget had ever heard, and it was accompanied by an even more impressive jump, one that probably would have led to a lawsuit by the people in the apartment below had it been any more forceful.

"Come on, Bridget! Let's go!" London grabbed Bridget by the arm as though she were going to drag her all the way to the bus stop.

"We still have fifteen minutes," Bridget said. "Let me finish my breakfast."

By the time they had gotten to the bus stop, the sunshine that had greeted Bridget's awakening had given way to rain. A lot of rain, and they hadn't thought to bring umbrellas. Luckily, though, the bus bench had a very large overhead cover, which, come to think of it, probably wasn't much help, since Bridget and London were already soaked. They found Juliet sitting on the bench by herself, looking down at her phone absentmindedly.

Bridget had to admit that she had never seen Juliet so much _un_like herself. She had thought seeing the girl in the detention center, sans heavy make-up and with even heavier curls, had been the oddest Juliet could and would ever look in her life, but now she wasn't so sure. The ripped t-shirt and old shorts didn't make her look any more like the rich little princess she had always pretended to be. And her face seemed to have gained quite a few pimples since Saturday.

"Juliet!" shouted London before Bridget had the chance to open her mouth.

"Bridget! London!" Juliet hopped off the bench and ran to hug them both, looking very happy to see Bridget and very surprised to see London. "London? Did you come to tell me to stop calling you?" she teased. "Sorry, my phone keeps dialing when I don't want it to. You were the last person I called on it, so it keeps calling your number whenever it touches something. Sorry about that. Daddy must have dropped it while I was in jail because it wasn't doing that a week ago."

"It's fine," said London. "My phone's on silent, now, anyway. But, I wanted to come to the shelter 'cause I thought you could use a friend on your first day. Plus, I just love bunnies! I had to come see them!" She giggled in her childish way.

"Oh great," said Juliet excitedly. "I was hoping you would come! If we ever_ get_ there, I mean. I've been waiting for this stupid bus forever." She sat back down on the bench. "So how is everybody?"

London, as always, was ready to talk. "Um, I'm _overly _excited to be here! My mom almost didn't let me go, but I knocked it out of her." She beamed, looking very accomplished with herself.

"I'm doing alright," said Bridget, taking the seat beside London, who oddly chose to sit on her knees. "The baby's getting easier." _For now, at least, _she thought. It would get harder soon enough and even more so after it was born.

A huge strike of lightning went barreling through the sky, making London jump.

"We probably won't even get there by ten," Juliet remarked, frustrated. But, when she handed Bridget her phone to show her the distance from the city to the shelter, Bridget was confused. It wasn't _that _far upstate, only an hour or so. An easy commute and now it was only seven-thirty. Juliet must have had a serious misjudgment of time. "It's not as far as you were making it sound." She voiced her observation.

"Well, ok," Juliet confessed right as the headlights of the bus came into view. "It's not quite as upstate as I made it sound, but, um…" she linked arms with her. "I needed to make sure I had plenty of time to talk to you."

Uh oh. Bridget's face suddenly grew oddly hot in the coolness of the rain. What did that mean?

When the bus pulled up, they searched the area for the cleanest spot (which meant, the one seat with the tiniest stain on it). Luckily, London had thought to bring her iPod and a copy of _Nightlight: A Twilight Parody_, so she would be occupied during whatever Bridget and Juliet had to talk about. But, Bridget had the feeling that it wasn't a coincidence. It was a bit too coincidental, in fact. Why else would she bring things to do when she had Juliet to talk to? She obviously felt that her friend and Bridget needed more time to themselves.

"Ok." Juliet took a huge breath, exactly like the ones women in labor take when they feel their first contractions. But, apparently, Juliet's metaphoric labor wasn't going to last long, because she unleashed what was possibly every thought in her head in a fusillade complete with no pauses or breaths. "You remember how you were supposed to be pregnant a long time ago? Well, it turns out Siobhan really was and she had twins and Daddy's probably the father because Henry had a paternity test done and it turns out he wasn't the dad so he told Daddy and so Daddy went to the hospital to take a test, too and he took pictures and they're two girls and they look just like him and then he told me that he was divorcing her and that it would cost a lot money and now he wants to put her in prison because Henry told him she killed Gemma and stole from his company and on top of all that, he lost his job and if he can't find a job here, we're probably gonna have to move to Cardiff and live with my grandma and grandpa and their beagle and I don't wanna do that 'cause we can't leave you, but now with two babies I don't know what Daddy's gonna say about another one! And now I'm a complete failure because I'm never gonna get a real job or anybody to like me again! I really think his artery might pop! Oh Bridget, everything's falling apart! I don't know what to do! I just want the world to stop and everything to be ok!"

She burst into tears and threw her arms around Bridget's neck in the same fashion she did at the detention center.

The rain suddenly started beating down harder, as if it were keeping in beat with the emotions and suspense on the bus. Bridget herself was frozen in shock for at least five seconds, before her mind began to thaw and processing what she had just heard became possible. Siobhan _had _been pregnant with Andrew's babies seven months ago (which, in a cruel way, Bridget felt like she should have been laughing at. After all the whining Henry had done about the baby being his, it had all been in vain.) But, now _she _was pregnant, and the consequences of the Ponzi scheme had finally come about….what was there to do?

She sat there for a few moments, rubbing Juliet's back, feeling the bus rock both of them back and forth, trying to put her thoughts together. Finally, she took a breath almost as big as the one Juliet had taken and whispered:

"It's gonna be fine. Whatever happens, it's gonna be fine."

But, Juliet wasn't convinced. Her puffy, pimpled face looked up at Bridget with a positively hopeless expression. "How?" she whimpered. "What is Daddy gonna say when he finds out he has _another _baby? And if he can't get a job, I know we're gonna have to move somewhere. He says he's gonna try and find a cheap place in New York, but what if he can't? What's gonna happen to you?"

"Ok." Bridget put her hands on Juliet's shoulders, trying her best to calm her shaking body. "First of all, with the economy the way it is right now, he'll definitely be able to find a cheaper apartment, and if he can sell this one first, you'll be in good shape for a while, so you won't have to move out of town. You might not be able to live in the nicest place, but you'll be able to sustain yourselves for awhile, ok? That's not the problem ..,. For now, anyway."

The bus stopped to pick up more passengers, a whopping five this time, including a wool-clad old lady smelling of baby powder who decided to sit right next to Bridget and crochet what looked like green mittens. She knew that they had to keep their voices low, but Juliet didn't seem like she thought so because her voice got even louder as she continued her ramble.

"I just don't get how he could have lost his job, though. He says it was because Olivia was gone and he had to turn it over to this other guy because he wasn't making progress on his own, but, then, I kept thinking about it, and I remembered that he said he was doing really good without Olivia and that he wouldn't need any help, because I asked him if everything was gonna be ok after he got shot and if his job was suffering 'cause she wasn't around anymore, and he said it was ok because she'd been planning to leave for a while. So, things must have really taken a turn for the worse for him to just suddenly, like, change his mind like that."

But, of course, Bridget knew the real reason. Her stomach tightened as the bus kept rattling forward. She knew that Gemma's father, Tim Arbogast, had been the reason behind Andrew's sudden unemployment, and while the company had been doing all right with Andrew as the sole head, Arbogast had not been planning to keep it that way for long. He had blackmailed Andrew with information about the Ponzi scheme that he had gotten from Henry, who no doubt got it from Tyler Barrett, whom Siobhan had probably given even more information in order to mischievously wipe her husband off the face of the Earth. After Catherine had gone to prison, Andrew told Bridget what Arbogast knew, and the two of them talked long and hard about how it would affect their family. Andrew had been upset about having to give up so much of his assets, but he knew it was for the best, and Bridget had insisted that he comply with whatever Arbogast wanted from him. She certainly didn't want him going to prison, so he gave in, and now, she supposed Arbogast had decided he no longer needed him, or had just kept him around long enough to give him a false sense of hope.

Now, the big dilemma was whether or not Juliet should know about what really happened with Andrew's company. She would be devastated, no doubt, to learn that her father was a fraud. But, at the same time, Juliet deserved to know what her father had done. Besides, Bridget had made the decision to never lie to her loved ones again. She had promised herself, her Higher Power, her unborn child, and even Juliet and Andrew, that she would never lie again. She had to honor it.

"Juliet," she began, eyeing the phone the girl still had in her hand. "Can I see your phone for a second, please?" She knew, as the bus became more and more crowded that she couldn't speak out loud, and that was the purpose of texting.

"Sure." Juliet looked a bit confused as to why Bridget would need her phone, but she didn't argue.

As soon as Bridget had the phone in her hand, she went straight to the "Send New Text" box, but was at a loss as to where to begin. Finally, she decided blunt was best.

"_You're dad didn't give the company up because of financial problems. He was blackmailed. He and Olivia were running a Ponzi scheme and the guy found out."_

She handed the phone back for Juliet to read as fast as she could. Her stomach was in a knot now. She wondered if the baby was getting squashed from all the pressure. At least it didn't need to breathe yet.

Juliet's eyes were wide when she read the text, but was still obviously confused. She looked at her and mouthed, "What's a Ponzi scheme?"

Bridget took back the phone and typed again. _"It's when you_ _pay investors with money from other investors because the company isn't turning a profit."_

As soon as Juliet had read the text, it was as if someone had decided to put the world in slow motion, because it took what felt like an eternity to Bridget for the realization to sink into Juliet's face, but when it did, she almost dropped the phone. She was as white as a sheet, and for a moment, Bridget was afraid she might faint. Instead, though, it appeared as if she had gone into a state of sudden depression. She didn't say a word for the rest of the trip to the shelter, but merely rested her head on Bridget's shoulder, leaving Bridget to dread the outcome.

When the bus finally stopped, so had the rain, leaving huge puddles on the busy sidewalk. Juliet was still visibly shaken by the revelation about her father, but wasn't talking. She didn't even say a word when Bridget asked to see the map on her phone to clarify where they were going. In fact, she merely glanced at the street signs and pointed, keeping her fists balled and her shoulders stiff. And from the nervous way she was twirling her hair as they walked, London obviously knew something was amiss with her friend, but kept silent. The three of them had to walk about a quarter of a mile before they found the place, which, when they did, was almost a blessing for Bridget because she didn't know how much silence she could handle.

The Rabbit Resource Center was hardly what Bridget would consider a center. In fact, the term "center," at least in Bridget's mind, had always meant a huge corporate building or at least, a _building_, a large structure meant for the purpose of conducting business. But this was no building: it was a house, smack-dab in the middle of a busy street full of gas stations, restaurants, and a strip mall. It was an old house from the looks of it, surrounded by trees of all shapes and sizes, and was in desperate need of new paint job. Obviously, though, it had to be old if it were the only one around. All the others around had been torn down years ago to make way for all of the commercialization. But, it was still a nice house, with a cute little flower garden in the front and a huge white rabbit with "New York Rabbit Resource Center" on the mailbox, not anything hard to miss.

Bridget decided to take the lead and knock on the glass-plated door. That was when she realized the picture of the rabbit in a straw hat holding a sign that said "Come In" on the front.

The first smell to come through Bridget's nose was that of hay, a pleasant smell, somewhat like tea leaves, but it was soon followed by what could only be urine. _That _smell made her stomach turn a bit. She just hoped it wouldn't get to her so bad that she vomited, like she did at the detention center, because she needed to be there for Juliet.

And judging by her pose, Juliet needed her right now. She walked stiffly up to the a middle-aged woman with bleached blonde hair behind a desk, in a place that used to be a foyer, and threw a piece of paper down in front of her, rigidly.

"I'm Juliet Martin," she said without preamble. "I'm supposed to come here, for, um…assault charges." Her speech was choppy, as if it took every ounce of her focus to keep herself composed. "And this is my friend London and my stepmom, Bridget. They came here to help."

Bridget raised an eyebrow at Juliet, almost accusingly. _Stepmom? _If that got back to Andrew, there was no telling what he would do.

The woman took the piece of paper off her desk and read it, interested, but not making any facial expression that said she was freaked out by a court order. She must have gotten a lot of them.

"Ok, Miss Martin." She stood up and shook hands with each of them and began to speak as if she were giving a speech. By now, though, it probably was one. "Nice to meet all of you. I'm Wilma Baker and I'm the head of the shelter. I've been the head of New York's chapter of the House Rabbit Society for six years now. Have you ever heard of our work before?"

"No," said Juliet curtly, shaking her head. "Can we get started now? What do you want us to do?"

Wilma looked taken aback by Juliet's brazenness, but tried to sound sweet. But, of course, she would. You couldn't be the head of a _rabbit _shelter and be mean, now, could you?

"Well, it says here you're supposed to start at ten, but it's nine-thirty now, and we can only operate by the hours the court decides. But feel free to walk around and see all the rabbits. We've actually got quite a few new ones, so you'll get acquainted with them over the time you're here."

"Great!" London wasn't wasting any time. "I'm gonna go look."

"Alright," Wilma said. "I'll take you on a personal tour of the place."

_This might be good_, Bridget thought, nodding without thinking. With London gone, she would have time to talk to Juliet alone.

As Wilma and London walked up a pair of creaky, barren stairs, Juliet clung to Bridget's arm and started crying again. Ok, that was enough. She had to stop.

A petite woman carrying a rather large bag of rabbit food walked up from what only could have been the basement of the house and noticed the commotion.

"Is everything alright?" she said.

Like Bridget would tell her, but since she obviously worked there or at least had volunteered there for a while, she probably knew the place well. "We're fine," Bridget said, stroking Juliet's hair. "But, could you tell us where the bathroom is? She needs to wash her face."

"Sure," the small woman said as she swung the bag down with a huge _thump_, shaking the old house in its entirety, and pointed to her left, a little ways past a dirty kitchen filled with tubs of cleaners. "It's right there."

Bridget thanked her and pulled Juliet inside. It was a one-person bathroom, of course, with dark red wallpaper and an air freshener that smelled of gingerbread men. It got rid of Bridget's nausea, but it was now replaced by hunger. Ugh! She had to ignore it. Juliet was the priority now.

She grabbed a paper towel from the holster and dabbed it on the teenager's face. "Look, Juliet. I know it's a shock—it was for me, too—but, how worse is it than what I did? At least, he came clean and quit doing it, and it was really hard for him to admit."

Juliet grabbed a flower-printed tissue from the sink and blew her nose. "That's the point," she sobbed.

Bridget was confused. "What do you mean?"

Juliet sighed and shook her head. "I mean, I don't get it. After everything he did, you stayed with him! Why?"

Well, the truth was, Bridget hadn't been very keen on staying with him in the beginning, but after he had saved her life, after he had taken a bullet for her, she realized how sorry he was and how much he really did love her. He truly was a man worth having in her life.

"Because I loved him," she said calmly, brushing a messy strand of hair out of Juliet's face. "And I knew he was sorry."

"Exactly," Juliet nodded. Ok? Bridget still didn't see her point. "_You _stayed with_ him_ after all the crap he did, but _he _kicked _you _out! Why?" She fell against the wall and continued to sob.

So that was it. Juliet couldn't understand why her father hadn't been so forgiving of Bridget when she had been so forgiving of him. It wasn't fair to her. In truth, it wasn't, but Bridget understood why he had done it.

She sat down next to her and pulled her into her arms. "Juliet, honey, I was a stranger in his house…I didn't have any right to be there. He had every reason to react the way he did. I'm sad that he did it, but I don't blame him, and you shouldn't, either."

But, Juliet shook her head frantically. "No!" she shouted. "No! He loved you and you loved him! You were his wife! His _real _wife! He was more married to you for seven months than he ever was with Siobhan or my mom and he knows it!" She banged her hands on her knees in raged, almost psychotically. "He's such a hypocrite! I HATE him!"

"No, Juliet, you don't—" but Bridget was cut off by a loud knock on the door.

"Is everything alright in there?" asked a woman's voice. Bridget couldn't tell if it was Wilma or someone else.

"We're fine," she replied, as she stood up and opened the door, feeling a bit woozy. Standing up very fast apparently didn't agree with the baby. "She's just…" she looked down at Juliet with sadness and a bit of guilt. Now the poor girl would never trust her father again. "…a little upset. She'll be fine, though. Come on, Juliet. You have to do this."

Bridget took her hand and pulled her up on her feet. The baby was lucky it was still a tadpole, because it if had been fully formed, it would have been crushed from Bridget having to bend over so forcefully.

They still had fifteen minutes before they could start working, so Bridget took the opportunity to coerce Juliet into exploring the house and visiting all the rabbits. There were fifty rabbits in the whole shelter, ten of which were lodged in the basement and were only there waiting for their owners to return from vacation. Meanwhile, the other forty were lodged in what had to have once been the master bedroom, the walls having been knocked down to make it larger and it was now extended as part of the hallway. There were two aisles of twelve cages each, six on each side, some holding one rabbit, others holding pairs. The aisles were covered in hay and rabbit droppings, predictably, but the nausea that had first gotten hold of Bridget didn't seem to come back. Maybe because she had other things on her mind.

London was in one of the aisles and had already picked up one of the rabbits, a little five-month albino male named "Pickles."

"I'm gonna ask Mom if I can have him," she said. He appeared to be very well-behaved in her arms, sitting there quietly, maybe even enjoying it, which was shocking. Bridget had expected an animal in London's grasped to be overpowered by her cooing and baby talk and willing to do whatever to get away. "He's not neutered yet, but that's ok. We can get him a mate in a couple years."

She didn't seem interested in putting him down, even by the time they were all ready to clean. In fact, she had called and told Greer about her love for Pickles and asked if she could adopt him right away. Judging by her reaction, though, Bridget had a feeling Greer had declined.

Cleaning the cages wasn't so horrible. Bridget actually had quite a laugh going from cage to cage and checking out all of the rabbits and their strange names and histories. A white-and-tan speckled female rabbit and gray male rabbit had the pair names "Kim and Kanye," while another pair, a white blue-eyed female and tan male were named "Scarlett and Rhett." One single male rabbit named "Reuben," a very large and fuzzy black lop, was very friendly and loved to be petted, but Bridget was saddened when she read his history on his info sheet: He had been kicked out of his house for fathering too many rabbits! His formers owners hadn't bothered to take him anywhere. They had merely decided to throw him out, but when he refused to leave their doorstep, they had _finally_ called the shelter.

Some people were just cruel.

Juliet did her work to a T, even getting down on her hands and knees without complaint and scrubbing the cages where they needed it. Bridget was impressed, but it was obvious that the girl was still very angry. The sour look on her face, the robotic way she moved, it all pointed to extreme anger. In fact, it wasn't until she actually got a call from Andrew asking how everything was going that she spoke, but only after Bridget had forced her to answer the phone.

"I'm fine, Daddy," she said miserably, leaning against a shelf stacked with water bowls. Her teeth were gritted, as though she were restraining the urge to lash out at him. "I'm busy. Go away. I'll talk to you when I get home." The phone beeped shut and she let it drop on the top of the shelf before she went to give Clarabelle, a black-and-white dwarf, some fresh water.

Bridget was relieved that she hadn't yelled at him in public. She just hoped that Juliet wouldn't go positively crazy on him when she got home later that night. If that happened, the consequences might be brutal….

Five o'clock came around slower than a snail getting to the mailbox, but when it finally had, all of them smelled of cleaner, rabbits, and sweat. Every cage had been swept, every littered box was fresh, and every rabbit was fed and watered and appeared to be content. But, Juliet was in no rush or mood to return to Park Avenue.

"Do you think your mom would let me stay with you for the night?" she asked London as they were walking back to the bus stop. The aftermath of the rain had left the sky an ironically pleasant blue. "She knows Bridget and I are friends, right?"

"Well, yeah," Bridget answered for London, who was still not in the loop as to the conversation she and Juliet had had earlier. "But, she would still have to tell your father no matter what. I think it would be best if you went home…." For a moment, she considered adding "and didn't tell him about anything," but she wasn't sure if it would be of any use. When she was angry, Juliet did what she wanted and that was that.

Then, she remembered something. "Juliet, did you remember your phone? I don't think you took it off the shelf."

"Ugh." Juliet rolled her eyes. "I'll be right back…." She trudged back up to the shelter, her back so low to the ground that it looked like she was going to fall over.

It took her ten minutes to come back, and when she did, she looked even more unhappy.

"Another lady thought it was hers and tried to take it, but I think she was stealing it," she said as she shoved her phone in her back pocket.

"It's ok, honey." Bridget put her arm around her as they walked down the sidewalk, very cautiously. It was rush hour, so cars were coming from every direction.

It took another twenty minutes for the bus to arrive, during which time London had tried to cheer everyone up by talking about how adorable all the rabbits were. Pickles was her favorite by far, but Razor, a jet-black Alaska male with a squashed nose, and Pluto, a blue female, were close seconds. She had taken almost thirty pictures in her time there, going over each rabbit in detail. The other seven people waiting at the stop stared at her until the bus finally arrived, but she didn't seem to notice.

This time around, the bus was so crowded that if the three of them had gotten on last, they would have had to stand up, which, even for an expectant mother, might have been more comfortable. There was barely any room for them to sit without crossing their legs, and London was soon trapped under a large woman's coat before she took initiative and pushed her onto the ground. It was almost funny.

Juliet held Bridget's hand in a child-like fashion as the bus moved ever so slowly back in the direction of NYC, but she didn't talk, not until the man sitting next to her had finally left. It seemed like she couldn't get one thought out of her mind.

"Why didn't he stay with you?" she asked, trembling. "Why?" It wasn't going to leave her brain until she got the answer from her father, and Bridget knew it.

"I don't know," Bridget finally responded. By now, she didn't care if anyone was listening. They had to have heard conversations like this sometime in their lives. "I think…he had been hurt by so many women, he just didn't want to take any chances. You know how hurt he was by Catherine, and then, by Siobhan when he found out she was having an affair. I mean, he really had a reason to kick me out."

"But, it's not fair," Juliet kept repeating. "It's not fair. You didn't do that to him. You didn't. You stayed with him…." She shook her head. "He's horrible…horrible."

"Juliet, please don't say that. He's not horrible." Bridget looked out the window, but there wasn't anything worth seeing, just endless cars and corporate structures. London had gone back to reading the book she had brought, but was glancing worriedly over in Juliet's direction about every three seconds or so. "He took a _bullet_ for me….I know he's not a superhero, but he is a good person deep down, ok? He obviously thought letting me go was the right thing to do. He was worried. He was scared, and I understand. I don't like it, but I understand."

"I don't care," Juliet responded in her stubborn way. "I still hate him. I want him to love you again. He needs to see how much he means to you. I don't like you being apart. He's not happy. He can't raise children by himself, and he can't spend the rest of his life alone. He can't."

She looked up at the ceiling, tears coming slowly down her face. Bridget felt helpless sitting there, watching her, but there wasn't anything she could do. There weren't quite as many people staring at them as there had been at London, as most of the other passengers probably thought that their conversation was nothing more than _Bachelorette _drama. They looked much more annoyed than they did interested.

* * *

Unfortunately, there was one person who found their conversation interesting, so much so that he was practically frozen in shock at what he was hearing. He had answered his phone moments ago, thinking that Juliet might have called to say that the bus was stuck in traffic or that the shelter had decided to make her stay longer, but now he knew that she must have dialed him by accident, because what she was saying wasn't anything she would want him to hear.

At first, he didn't know what to do. He could have called her back. He could have started calling her name until she realized her phone was on, but in the end, he decided something different. He turned the phone off and sat down on the couch and waited for her to come home. He would deal with it then.


	10. Mr Impetuous

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! I'm back! Hopefully, you'll see me more frequently! Sorry for the long wait. This chapter has sorrow, anger, humor, and young adult drama, not to mention some references to former characters played by a cast member. Extra points to who guesses them! (It shouldn't be that difficult). Please enjoy and remember to review and thank you so much to all of you who have done so up to this point! I'm working really hard on this story and I'm so glad you guys like it! All of your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Love,  
May

**Chapter Ten: Mr. Impetuous**

Juliet said good-bye to Bridget and London with a heavy heart. She didn't want to be going home, but she knew she had no other choice. Andrew would find out where she was sooner or later if she were to run to a friend's house, and if she were to go to the Sheridans' apartment, then that would mean trouble for Bridget, and she couldn't have that. So, she walked, as slowly as molasses, from the bus stop to her apartment on Park Avenue. It was about a fifteen minute walk, far more rigorous than the mere five minutes it took for Bridget and London to walk home. Unlike most days, though, when she would be trying to hail a cab as fast as possible to avoid the murderous walk, today it felt almost good for her to avoid her home for as long as she could. She was too lazy to pull her phone out of her to look at the time, but she guessed, judging by the slightly pinkish-gold clouds on the horizon, that it was probably around seven-thirty.

Traffic was still horrible. The cars on the street beside her were barely moving a centimeter as she walked. She probably could have run all the way back to her apartment in the time it took the light up ahead to turn green, so, in any other circumstance, a cab would have done her far less good. She kicked a beer bottle that was lying at her feet, wishing it were aimed at her father. He didn't deserve her love or anyone else's if he wouldn't forgive Bridget, not after what he had done. He was such a hypocrite. She couldn't believe all that time she had spent feeling sorry for him, thinking that he had suffered more than life itself. Now, he deserved it, as far as she was concerned.

She had the sudden urge to take the empty bottle home with her and throw it at his face, but she thought better of it and kept walking, head low, trying to think of a more calm way she could approach him. Really, though, she was at a dead end. She couldn't yell and scream at him about what he had done without risking hurting Bridget. But, she didn't think she could keep her feelings hidden for long. She looked up miserably at all that was around her, everything that felt so normal. The happy dogs jogging their tongues hanging to the ground, people going in and out of buildings and shops. There were even little kids with jump ropes dragging the ground. She wondered how many of _them _were living a lie, pretending to be someone they weren't.

Oh well, everything would come to light soon enough if they were.

By the time she had made it to her apartment building, it was surprisingly dark. Maybe it had taken her longer than she thought to walk. She did have a lot on her mind. There were only two security guards at the entrance. Huh. Maybe enough people were complaining about how intrusive having five of them was. Juliet certainly thought it had been too much, and she hadn't even been home for a day to start complaining.

She held up the little green card the receptionist had given her that morning, signaling to the guards that she was a resident and didn't need to be searched. She hadn't remembered Andrew showing one yesterday, though. He must have come in and out enough that they knew him by now.

The lobby was cold, much more so than it had been this morning. Juliet made a note to herself to always bring a sweater, just in case. There were only five people there, six if you counted that stupid simpering receptionist Linda. God, she was annoying! That morning, before Juliet had gone out to catch the bus, she had tried to strike up a stupid conversation with her. Something about not being able to find her good lipstick this morning…or something like that. This time, she appeared to be on the phone with someone, so it was doubtful that she was looking to converse, but Juliet didn't take any chances and kept her head turned away from the desk as she walked slowly toward the elevators. If she called her name, she would pretend she didn't hear her.

Before she pressed the button to her floor, she knew she had to think of something to say to Andrew. Was there a way she could bring everything up subtly? She thought about it. No. She wasn't supposed to know anything about her father's business. No way at all. She didn't even know a thing about business, not even jargon or lingo to make it sound like she could have stumbled upon something. How did they even do investments, anyway? She shook her head and finally decided on pretending like nothing was wrong until she could talk it over with Bridget some more. That was the best thing. Bridget was smart. She would be able to come up with something.

So, she reluctantly pressed the number to her apartment, trying to take deep breaths as the elevator moved upward steadily. She wished it would stop and let others on so that it would take longer for her to get home, but then she remembered that this was an elevator designed specifically for her apartment only. No other floors save the lobby could access it.

When the doors began to open, her palms grew sweaty and she even started to feel a bit dizzy. She didn't want to face him, not at all. She wanted to run away to a place where all was well, with Andrew and Bridget walking hand-in-hand and with her a happy, good girl, like in her dream from the night before.

But, dreams weren't reality, and they never came true.

She took once last breath as her living room came into view, preparing to face her father with the first bit of conversation that came out of her mouth, and was a bit perplexed by the silence that greeted her. The lights were on, so Andrew was definitely home, but why wouldn't he have greeted her on the spot? Was he in the shower? She didn't hear water running. There was no sound of the T.V.

"Daddy?" she called, uncertainly.

"In here." A voice came from the living room. It sound curt and short, but not something that Juliet wouldn't have expected coming from her father, not after all _this. _The difference was that she didn't feel any sympathy for him now. Just anger at his hypocrisy, more like. He had no reason to be mad with her after all the crap he had done. Her palms got sweaty as she started to walk toward where the voice was coming from. She didn't want to face him, but she knew she had to.

He was sitting on the couch, crossed-legged in that weird way men do, with their legs forming an odd "4." Juliet always wondered why they did that. Did they think crossing them all the way was too feminine? Or were they _unable _to cross them all the way? But, then her thoughts changed as she noticed the look on his face, his eyes staring at her in that scary way she hated so much. The look in itself made chills run down her spine. But why were they like that? Had she done something wrong?

"Hi Daddy," she said slowly, eyebrows furrowed. What could she have done now? She racked her brain, trying to think of all she had done since leaving the house. No, she hadn't gotten into any trouble in the past few hours. She knew it. She would have remembered. But, he sure looked mad about something.

"Juliet," he said calmly, sternly. "Have you been having any issues with your phone today?"

She shook her head, confused. "No…what do you…?" But, then she remembered. Yes, she had been having problems with it. It had been dialing the last person she called, and just who had that been?

Oh no.

Her face fell. Her eyes widened in terror. It was obvious now. He had heard her talking to Bridget! And he was _pissed._

"I don't understand what's wrong?" she heard herself say, knowing that he knew any denial she made would be a complete lie.

He leapt off the couch with dexterity and was soon towering above her. "You know very well what's wrong."

She was starting to sweat now. She could only imagine how bad she smelled, rabbits, bleach, and sweat. It couldn't have been a good combination. "I—"

"_Where is she?" _

And now she was a statue. She couldn't move. But, he could. Andrew began walking around the room, angry and flustered, as though he were looking for something other than Juliet to punch to relieve said anger, or at least bring as much solace to himself as was possible. He was even sweating, almost as badly as she was.

"I did _not _say you could talk to her," he rebuked, eyes burning with fire. "Why would you do it behind my back?" He didn't wait for a response before he asked again, "_Where is she_?"

Her pulse seemed to be going faster. Could her heart burst? She couldn't take her eyes off him for fear that he might, just might, be mad enough to throw something at her. But, she couldn't respond. She was too afraid of what he might do. All her courage seemed to have fled and all she wanted to do was run away. He stared at her, fists clenched, eyes hard, until he abruptly left the living room. For a moment, she had the horrible dread that he might be heading for the kitchen to retrieve a knife so that he could stab her, when she heard the sound of glass breaking.

So he _had _decided to throw something. A strange rush of adrenaline came over her and she ran to see what it was he had broken, fearing that it might have been what she thought it was, and she was right: lying on the hardwood floor, glass shattered into what had to be a million pieces, was a now bent photograph of Andrew and Bridget that was taken on New Year's Day, or early morning, as it were, still in the frame. The night before, she had noticed that he still had it on his desk, but hadn't made any comments about it, although it was indeed very strange. Why had he even kept that photo around this long? She had considered telling Bridget earlier that day, but at the time, all the other revelations about her life seemed more important to reveal.

"You will _never _speak to her again. Do you understand me?" His face was twitching in anger.

What else could she do? She nodded, mutely. She could feel her tears coming before she could stop them. God, she really hated him now.

She shivered when he put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "Now, I'll ask you again: where is she?"

She swallowed, felt his grip tighten. "Sh-sh-she's…still with London's family. She and London came to visit me on Saturday and…."

His face relaxed in rhythm with his grip. "And you stayed in touch with her?" He nodded, but it was brisk, disapproving, an "I understand how you got in touch with her" look rather than an "It's _fine_ got in touch with her" look.

That was when he headed for the door. She panicked. He was really pissed. He was probably going over there to punch Bridget or worse and had just opened the door to the elevator when she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back. "Daddy, please don't hurt her! She didn't do anything wrong!"

"She did plenty wrong, Juliet, and you know it!" He forced her off of him so hard that she fell backward onto the floor. "Please, Daddy no!" She continued to shout and cry as he left.

She huddled into a fetal position, feeling absolutely hopeless, until she realized that she had to warn Bridget. She stumbled clumsily up onto her feet and took her phone from her back pocket, when she noticed all the broken glass on the floor near her father's desk. She had to pick up the pieces and salvage the photo if she could. If that was the only image of her true mother she could get her hands on, she was going to keep it.

But as she lifted the photograph up off the floor, not caring about the shards of glass that were falling on her skin, she noticed a white piece of paper in the back of the frame, sticking out of the top left corner of the frame, ever so slightly.

If Andrew wasn't showing his true feelings now, she would certainly make him.

* * *

It was about nine o'clock by the time Bridget finally got out of the shower. She put on a pair of old pajamas and walked out of her bedroom and past the kitchen, where she found Greer and Jeff cooking something that looked like soup. It was a rarity for Bridget to see Jeff at all. He always left for work in the wee hours of the morning and tonight was the first night she had seen him arrive home before nine-thirty. He was a hedge fund manager-turned lawyer who was even more of a perfectionist than Greer was, including in his appearance. As Greer had put it, he was obsessed with exercise and keeping his hair blonde, so much, in fact, that he went to the salon every two months. Greer hadn't been in nearly six months, not that she needed to go any time soon.

"Hi everybody," Bridget said, smelling the aroma of basil leaves. Yum. She hoped the baby would continue to let her keep food down. It had been doing well the past few days. Maybe it would even enjoy the taste of basil.

"Hey, Bridget," they both said at once. Jeff was sprinkling the leaves inside of the pot. "How was the shelter? London's going crazy over all those rabbits."

"She's always been crazy over rabbits," replied Greer, who was measuring out a tiny bit of turmeric in a cup.

"Not this crazy," he said. "She's been talking nonstop about Pickles, an albino of all things! All of those coats to choose from and she was drawn to the ugliest one! But, whatever, we're _not _getting any pets until she learns how to clean. How did you like it?"

"It was pretty nice," Bridget said as she took a seat at the table, accidentally scraping the leg of the chair against the floor, an awful screech escaping it. "Sorry…but, Juliet didn't have that good of a time. Cleaning isn't her thing, either." She didn't want to include anything about the anger that Juliet felt toward her father. They didn't need to know that much.

"Yeah," said Jeff. "Girls will be girls, I guess."

Girls, right. Bridget let out a small chuckle. It wasn't just a girl's issue, and every man knew that.

"This is probably gonna take a few minutes before it's ready," said Greer, still measuring the turmeric. It would better had she just given up and thrown the whole bottle in there.

"But, do you guys need help?" Bridget asked. Greer sure looked like she did.

"No, no, Jeff's doing a good job," Greer answered for the two of them. "He needs to do this. If this is the only time he comes just a tad early, he's gonna be useful."

If looks could kill, Greer would be dead. If it was a joke, Jeff didn't take kindly to it.

"When am I not useful?"

Bridget wasn't sure if she wanted to know where this was going, and as she had her own problems with marriage, she didn't exactly what to intrude on anyone else's, so she took that as her cue to see what London was up to. She walked out into the living room, to find the teenager in a dark gray bathrobe sitting on the couch, Skyping her friend Lindsay, a girl from Rochester who probably had the IQ of a doll from what Bridget had heard of her so far. She wondered what subject in school the poor girl was having trouble with now. Two days ago, she had failed a biology test.

London waved to Bridget as she sat on the couch and pulled up something from the internet. As the girl began to read, Bridget was having a hard time deciphering what Lindsay was having trouble with: was it English or math?

"'Hornblower arranges a duel in which only one pistol will be loaded; he calculates his chance of surviving the duel at an even half—"the Even Chance." Discuss the rationale behind engaging in a duel where one is fifty per cent likely to die,'" London read. "Well, that's a really depressing discussion question. But does if it has to do with the whole hero, bildungsroman thing, you could talk about a chance like that being so low of survival would mean a great sacrifice and honor. Shows he's not cowardly, blah, blah, blah. Stuff like that. Just remember to put it in your own words."

Ok, so an English question. An English question about heroes and bullets, no less! Great, just what Bridget needed. Then again, was there anything now that _didn't _remind her of Andrew? Huh. No. Not at all, and now Juliet was angry with him. Things couldn't possibly get any worse.

"But how am I gonna get three pages out of that?" Lindsay said asked from inside the computer.

"Three pages?" London looked shocked. "I thought you said this was a short answer question."

"No, I said 'short essay'" Lindsay clarified. "And it's due tomorrow so—"

"Well, do what everybody else does and find quotes from the book to back up your answer. It's not that hard if you've read the book."

But Lindsay stared back at her, silent.

"Lindsay, _you didn't read the book_?" It was as if London had never seen anyone slack off so much in her life. In her world, it was an absolute crime not to do one's homework, but Bridget had to admit: she was entertained.

That was, until London's phone started ringing.

"'Scuse me, Lindsay," she said roughly as she pulled her phone from her pocket, looking a little bit too relieved to be rid of her not-so-studious friend. "It's Juliet."

Bridget's stomach suddenly lurched. She wondered if the baby could feel her nausea, even when it wasn't coming from the baby itself.

"Juliet, come on." London abruptly closed her laptop, leaving Lindsay to fend for herself in the world of slackers. She rolled her eyes as she spoke. "Stop crying. I can't understand you. Calm down. What's wrong?"

Crying? Was Juliet so upset over Andrew that she couldn't even face him?

"He's not gonna do that! He's a British _gentleman_, not a British _rocker_!"

London paused, a look of I-can't-believe-she's-freaking-out-about-this staring back at Bridget, who wasn't certain at all about what to believe as she had no idea what Juliet was supposedly crying about.

"Well, at least he didn't throw it at you! That would have been like, absolutely horrible, and he would've gone to jail…Ok, ok, do you want to talk to Bridget? She's right here? No? Ok, ok. Fine. I'll tell her. It'll be fine. Just promise me you'll calm down, 'k? 'K. Bye."

London sighed dramatically and looked at Bridget. "Mr. Martin's coming over because he heard you guys talking on the way home from the shelter." She shook her head and added, more to herself than to Bridget. "Ugh! That's why you always turn your phone off before you put it in your back pocket! Everybody knows that."

She didn't even bother to walk into the kitchen to tell her parents that Andrew was coming. Instead, as most teenage girls would, she used her enormous lung capacity to get them to come to her.

"MOOOM! DAAAD! COME IN HERE!"

Jeff and Greer ran in from the kitchen at the sound of London's screaming, obviously expecting to see either a burglar or, even worse, a mishap with their daughter's laptop, the latter certainly being more likely, as it had already had _three _viruses since Bridget had been there.

Of course, upon seeing no burglar in his mists, Jeff assumed the latter case and went immediately over to grab London's computer.

"Let me see it, honey," he began, but as soon as his fingers touched it, London yanked it away and reprimanded him as though he were a stupid child.

"No, Dad!" she rebuked him, putting the computer on the couch. "It's not the computer. It's Mr. Martin. He's coming over to talk to Bridget and Juliet's all freaked out 'cause he smashed a photo of you." She turned to look at Bridget, who suddenly found herself more shocked that Andrew would keep a photo of her around _to _smash than she was that he had actually smashed it. It got her wondering….Was he really that angry? Or did he just want to mask his pride? "But, I was like 'at least he didn't throw it at you.' I mean, dads throw stuff all the time when they're angry. Like, Dad, remember that time you got so mad at me for getting second place in the spelling bee that one time, in, like, third grade, and you broke that vase with the orange butterflies on it? You know, the one Nana and PopPop sent Mom for her birthday?" That was obviously something she wasn't supposed to say because her eyes widened in terror and she clapped her hand over her mouth so hard that it echoed.

Apparently, that vase wasn't a present that Greer ever knew she had received. "A vase?" she asked, puzzled, but then, she added in a much more accusing tone as she realized just what that had to mean. "_Jeff_?" She gasped. "Is that what they said must've gotten lost in the mail after they asked me at least a thousand times whether or not I liked it?"

He rightly blanched, but, as most men do, instead of apologizing, he tried to come up with an explanation for his actions. "It was beyond ugly. It really was. You would have thrown it away." He changed the subject back to the issue at hand, looking uneasily at Greer. "We'll talk about this later. But, this is about Andrew right now. When he comes over, I'll talk to him before he sees Bridget. How's that?"

"I don't know if he'll actually be interested in talking to you, Dad," London pointed out, glancing down at her laptop again, nervously.

"Well, I'm doing it anyway, even if it's only for a second." Jeff didn't seem like the kind of guy to let just anyone in his house, especially an angry person, which was a good thing for Greer, but perhaps a scary thing for Bridget. She didn't want to see another man ready to beat up Andrew if need be. She doubted it would happen, but if it came to that, she didn't know what she would do.

She stood there, her stomach turning. She didn't know what to think about seeing Andrew again. In an odd way, she felt a sense of joy, of longing, of a pleasant feeling that she couldn't even place a name to. Even if he was angry, she hadn't seen him in two weeks, and of course, there was still something very important she had to tell him. That is, unless Juliet had already done so. She started to sweat as she thought about it. Could that be what he was angry about? Was he coming over to accuse her of getting pregnant on purpose?

She decided it would be best for her to sit down on the couch. Standing in her state would surely result in collapse.

"Do you need some water, honey?" Greer asked, obviously seeing the look on her friend's face.

Bridget was starting to get angry with herself over her lack of control with anything having to do with Andrew. She had witnessed a murder, beaten the power of drugs and alcohol, and faced death three times in less than a year, yet she couldn't hold her composure when it came to this one man.

Why?

Greer didn't wait for an answer to whether or not Bridget actually wanted any water, but went straight into the kitchen to some anyway. While London, always the optimistic, sat down next to her and took her hand.

"It'll be fine, Bridget," she assured her. "It was my fault, anyway, you know. _I _asked you to come to the center with me."

"No, honey, it wasn't." Bridget stroked London hair and smiled slightly, feeling absolutely awful about letting London think it was her fault. Boy, did she have a rock in her stomach now! "I shouldn't have said yes."

"Yes, you should have," said London. "You had to patch things up with Juliet, anyway. Aren't you happy you did that? And now maybe you can do the same with Mr. Martin? I mean, it's really about time you talked to him, especially about the baby."

Bridget nodded. As usual, London was right. For a teenager, she had more wisdom than most adults. Bridget and Andrew needed to talk, provided that he let her get a word in.

Greer came back with a glass of water and sat down beside her friend.

"Thanks," Bridget said as she took the glass. She didn't exactly have any interesting in drinking it, but holding it in her hands relaxed her, even if only a little bit.

"When he comes, just be calm and explain everything like you would," Greer said. "And if he gets _wound _up, we'll do something about it."

"Like I said, I'll talk to him before he sees you," said Jeff. "It'll be fine."

Bridget took a deep breath and sipped her cup. "Ok," she said.

Twenty minutes went by before Jeff finally got a call from the front desk saying that someone was there to see him. Bridget had been trying to occupy herself by reading a book about pregnancy that she had purchased from Barnes and Noble the other day (in fact, she had gotten interested after she had skipped all the way to the "third-trimester" section) and by watching London humorously ignore Lindsay's Skype chat requests about the literature essay that she was never going to get finished.

Finally, there was a knock at the door, a soft knock, one that anyone could have mistaken for a pleasant visit from a relative, unlike Bridget had expected. Well, maybe not. Andrew wasn't the kind of person to barge into someone else's house. He didn't like that kind of attention from strangers, (unlike Henry Butler, who had the guts to grab a woman and chew her face off in front of a whole crowd of people. Ugh! Bridget still gagged every time she thought about it.) Still, Bridget's toes were curling in anxiety. She wasn't sure what to expect at all. But, she knew Andrew would think even worse of her if she didn't show her face as soon as he walked through the door. She couldn't hide from him, so she made the decision to stand behind the front door.

Of course, Jeff was the one to actually answer the door, as he wouldn't take no for anything, just in case something happened. He stepped in front of her and opened it slowly, cautiously, as if he were expecting Andrew to burst through any moment. But, no. There was no bursting. Just a sinister look and that was all. But, the look wasn't even aimed at Jeff. It was as if Andrew didn't even see him, or was ignoring him, which was much more likely.

"Andrew," Jeff began, placing his foot in the doorway, "please—"

"Who do you think you are?" He said to Bridget, not challenging Jeff, but rather treating him as though he were a glass wall between them, as he didn't try to actually come into the house. "You have no right to talk to my child after everything you've done to my family!"

Jeff kept trying to talk and even made an attempt to block Bridget from Andrew's view, but she took initiative, because, honestly, Jeff wasn't helping, and tried to pull him away from the door, allowing Andrew an entrance. Greer had her back.

"Jeff, they need to talk," she said, putting her hand on her husband's shoulder.

"No we don't," Andrew interrupted, but still did not take his eyes off Bridget. "We're done talking! I never want to see you again, and if you ever come near my daughter or continue any contact with her whatsoever, I will have you arrested! I swear it! Do you understand me?"

She wanted to respond, but her voice was stuck in her throat and it didn't help that her tears were escaping her eyes rather rapidly.

"Do you?" he asked. "Say you understand and that you'll never contact Juliet again." He was inches away from her, his beautiful brown eyes burning into her like hot coals. They looked even radiant when he was angry….

Wait! _What? _What was she doing? He was standing there, threatening her, making her cry, and all she could do was think about his eyes. How much power could he have over her?

She could feel Greer, Jeff, and London watching him tensely from around her, worrying about what harm he could inflict on her, but she wasn't worried about anything physical. Finally, she found her voice. Unfortunately, it came out as nothing more than a hoarse stutter.

"A-Andrew, I didn't mean to make you angry. Sh-she needed me—"

"Yes, she needed you," he responded, chest heaving. "She needed you more than anything, but you ruined her by letting her believe that you were someone you weren't. We both needed you…."

He shook his head and looked away from her, only to stare at her again and repeat once more with force, "Don't contact her again."

He turned on his heal and left before she had the chance to say anything about the baby, how much she still loved both of them, him and Juliet. But, she knew that was it. He would never forgive her now.

Her heart was shattered and she would never be able to put the pieces back together.

* * *

As he raced angrily down the stairs of the Sheridans' apartment complex, he didn't see that he was pushing people out of the way to leave the large building. He thought about the woman she was, about everything she had done. After all of her lies and deceit, she thought she could show up around Juliet! He couldn't believe it. It was sick, horrible.

But, all the same, why would she even waste her time with all those lies? She didn't have to pretend to be a good wife or a loving mother. Even people who were planning to murder their spouses couldn't keep pretending that well. Just look at Siobhan. She hadn't even bothered to pretend. He supposed that was the dilemma that he had with Bridget, why he felt like he would never get over her, no matter how much he tried. She had always seemed so real and sincere, and for that, she was always in his mind.

It was dark and even a bit chilly by the time he made it outside to hail a cab back to his apartment. He was so flustered that he didn't even hear the cabdriver greet him and even took him a moment to understand that the driver was asking him where he wanted to go.

He didn't even wait for the car to make a full stop before he got out. He just wanted to get away from it all. He didn't even know what to expect to find when the elevator to the apartment opened, but what he did find, he supposed he _should _have expected.

The small wooden table in the foyer was overturned and there was broken glass on one side of it. But, to his horror, his daughter, his beautiful daughter, was sitting right in the middle of the foyer drinking a broken bottle of champagne that she had apparently smashed open with the table. The corner of her mouth was bleeding as a result.

"Juliet!" He shouted louder than he had in a very long time! He couldn't believe his daughter would dare do this, not after everything she had been through. She was turning into her mother faster than he could blink. "Juliet! Give me that!"

He angrily ran over to snatch the bottle from her, when she screamed and tried to kick him wildly. But, he was too strong and soon overpowered her, knocking the bottle out of her hand and spilling the rest of its contents, and pinning her to the floor, grabbing her hands to prevent her from clawing at him. He stayed on top of her for several moments, until she stopped fighting and her screams turned into sobs. He lifted her up off the floor, but kept his hands around her wrists. Yet, it was more for cooperation than anything else.

"What do you think you were doing?" he shouted. "You know how you nearly destroyed yourself from doing this! Do you want to end up like your mother?"

She continued sobbing uncontrollably

"What, Daddy?" she asked sarcastically, her face growing puffy and her breathing turning into hyperventilation, blood smearing on her cheek. "W-was I being a bad girl? Good. I wanted you to see it, because that's the only way I can get your attention so you can see my point, isn't it?" That was true. Everything she ever did was to get his attention because he never gave it to her enough. That was how all teenager went off the deep end, wasn't it? "I take back what I said! I don't forgive you for anything anymore, because I can guarantee I'm not as bad as you, all that cheating, lying, and stealing money from people. Yeah, Bridget told me about the Ponzi scheme and all the crap you did! You told her because you loved her and thought you could trust her and that she loved you enough to forgive you." Her eyes burned with hatred, something that he thought he would never see again after just a few months ago. "And guess what? She stayed with you, because she loved you! After everything you did, she stayed with you because she knew you were sincere and you wanted to change. You know that! How is that any different than what she's doing? She confessed to you because she thought _you_ loved her enough to forgive her! And didn't you? It's the same thing. "

No, no he didn't want to hear this. It wasn't true. She was saying this to get her way. His situation had not been the same as Bridget's. It was completely different.

"No," he tried to tell her. "It's not the same thing."

But, she wasn't listening.

"Yes it is, Daddy!" She shouted. "It's completely the same! And where did you get that ugly scar on your chest from? You got it protecting her and she stayed right by you! Do you have any idea what mom or Siobhan would have done? They would have bludgeoned you! They would have beat you to a pulp to make sure you died, to finish you off, because they never cared about you! But she did, Daddy, and you know it! It wasn't a lie, Daddy! You know it!"

He was frozen on the spot.

"And I know you love her, too! You kept her picture, and you kept that poem behind it!"

She wrenched her wrist out of his grasp and grabbed a piece of white paper from her pocket, only to throw it at his face, and his stomach clenched. Yes, he knew that poem. It was the one he was going to read to her the day they were to renew their vows.

Why had he put it there? He couldn't say.

Or maybe, he just didn't _want_ to….


	11. Lost in Transition

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Here's Chapter 11! Can anyone spot the character reference here? I wonder…

Enjoy!

Love,

May

**Chapter Eleven: Lost in Transition **

Thursday

After having one of the worst days of your life, there is nothing worse than being woken up from a two-hour sleep by a woodpecker. That was Henry's opinion today. He grunted and threw his pillow over his head. It didn't help one bit. He didn't even know where the stupid thing could have come from. The whole townhouse was made of _brick_! It must have found the tiniest millimeter of wood. It was always like that. Everyone always found a way to bother Henry, no matter how hard it was, especially when they knew he was already feeling awful. The whole world was turning against him and that was just a fact.

The question was: did he deserve it?

His children thought he was a monster. Tim Arbogast had made sure of that. The day before, Henry had received a phone call from the courthouse telling him that, while there was no evidence that there had been any money exchange between Tim and the judge, there was no legal reason why Henry could not gain full custody of his children. There were no charges or investigation on him for the murder of Tyler Barrett. Therefore, Henry was free to have Dash and Becks back.

The problem was that they didn't want him as a father anymore. He had gone over to Tim's house the night before with a signed statement (and a lawyer) to retrieve them. However, when Dash and Becks saw him and heard they had to be going back with him, it was an absolutely horrible experience, to say the least. They ran up the stairs like cheetahs running from poachers. Henry had followed them and watched in shock as they slammed the door to their bedroom. He couldn't believe that they were so afraid of him and couldn't think of why, until he had opened the door (probably breaking the lock beyond repair) and witnessed them kicking and screaming for him to go away, yelling that he "took Mommy away."

Of course, that made Henry furious at Tim, which caused him to shout rather nasty insults at him in front of the lawyer. But, if the lawyer hadn't been there at all, he would have done a lot more damage. As fate would have it, his children would not be persuaded to come with him and were left to be with their grandfather.

In retrospect, he wasn't sure if he had made the right choice in leaving them there or not. His children were barely four years old. They had no idea what they were saying when they told him to leave. Half of him said he had been ridiculous, letting them stay with Tim. He was probably filling their heads with more horrible thoughts about him.

So why didn't go right over and scoop them up?

Because of what they had said. His children's words would linger in his head forever. Even if he hadn't killed their mother, he had still destroyed their marriage and thus, a chance for his children to have a happy family.

And then there was the whole situation involving Tyler. Was he really off the hook, or was it only a matter of time before the police pulled more evidence against him? Security footage, fibers, fingerprints? He had worn gloves, but still. What if it wasn't enough? They opened up cold cases all the time and found new things against people that they hadn't noticed before. What if he was one of those cases? It scared him to death that they might actually find something. He had wanted it to be all a dream that he could just wake up from and everything would be ok. He couldn't believe that he had actually been the death of someone. It just seemed so impossible until he remembered the look in Tyler's eyes and everything became real again. He could never do anything so foolish again.

It was around nine in the morning when he finally got out of bed. He walked to the closet groggily and took out his green sweatshirt, throwing it on over his red t-shirt. He really wasn't in the mood to dress nicely. Then, again, was he ever these days?

Today was the day he and Siobhan were scheduled to pick up her daughters from the hospital. Not that she was excited about it. She had been talking just last night about leaving them there for adoption.

He couldn't stand her anymore. Here he was, trying his hardest to get his kids back, kids who didn't even want him as a father anymore, and she was willing to leave her daughters in a ditch if she had the opportunity. He wished he had the courage to kick her out right now, but he knew he needed to wait. He had a plan that would get her good and he was going to go through with it. That is, of course, if Andrew still agreed to it.

When he came down the stairs, he found her out on the back porch smoking her daily cigarette (which she had now increased to two), her hair pulled back in her usual bun. She smiled as she saw him and placed her cigarette in the ashtray, blowing a long trail of smoke out of her mouth.

"I think I'll do it tomorrow," she said as soon as she came through the door and proceeded to water the tray down in the sink. Uh! The smell of smoke was so powerful he could feel bile rising in his throat.

"Do what?" he asked, his head starting to ache. He wasn't in the mood to guess anything today. He followed her into the kitchen and watched her dump the ashes into the trashcan under the sink.

"Go to Park Avenue," she responded. "I've decided I'll go there around three o'clock and confront Bridget, and if she's not there, I'll wait for her to come home and finish it then."

Oh, that. He nodded. _Three o'clock. Make sure Andrew has a weapon handy, just in case. _"What are you going to use?"

"Well, a gun would be preferable, but since getting one's impossible, I was thinking maybe a hammer or a knife."

That was when he remembered all the police that had recently been installed at the apartment due to the Macawi attack.

"You know, because of the whole Macawi thing, they probably re-amped the security a bit," he said. _Scratch that. No weapon needed for Andrew. He could overpower her anyway if she lost control. _

"Right. Forgot about that. Damn it." She wrinkled her nose. He used to think it made her cute, but now she was just ugly. "Ok, I'll just go to the house, confront her, and call the police. I'll say she's stealing something. She's a fugitive, anyway. Or maybe not, now that Macawi's actually dead. The FBI probably isn't interested in her anymore, and after everything fucking Kemper probably told them, they'd have to know she was set up. Oh, whatever. I can still portray her as a filthy drug addict. It'll be fine. Don't worry." She gave a sympathetic smile.

"Alright." What else was there for him to say? Then he noticed something. "What's going on with your midsection?" It was curved much more than it was yesterday.

"Oh this?" she said excitedly. "You like it? Shapewear. I got it yesterday. I didn't think twenty dollars could buy something this good. But look." She twirled around as if she were wearing a long dress (it was V neck shirt) and lifted it up to show the beige corset-like device around her stomach. "Andrew won't even be able to tell I've had two babies."

_He won't need to. He already knows. _

He trudged over to the mailbox outside the front door, and what he found completely made his day! A notice stating that he was three months behind on mortgage! This was actually the second notice, but he had ignored the last one. Gemma's insurance was almost gone and it had been depleting slowly for quite some time. He just didn't want to admit it to himself. He still had the money he had stolen from Siobhan two weeks before, of course, and that probably could have taken care of all his money problems. In fact, no doubt it would have, although, somehow, he felt more inclined to give it back to Andrew….

"What's that?" Siobhan asked from behind him.

He crumpled the letter up in his hand. "Nothing. Just bills."

She smiled sympathetically, wrapping her arms around him. "Just think. Soon we won't have any money troubles at all. We'll be richer than Midas."

She leaned in and planted an ashy kiss on his lips, which he returned, rather passionately, while trying his best not to gag. She knew how much he hated tobacco.

"Come on," Siobhan said as they broke apart. "You've been through a lot. I'll make you breakfast."

_What? _The last time Siobhan cooked, she practically burned the kitchen down.

But whatever. "Sure."

By eleven o'clock, it was time to go to the hospital, but it was more than obvious that Siobhan did not want to go at all. She got in the car, flustered, and kept asking if Henry was curtained he wanted the girls. Thinking it over, he could have just left them there for Andrew to pick up. Although, since Andrew had no claim on the babies until the paternity test came back positive, the hospital might decide to put them up for adoption if Siobhan gave them up. Maybe. Henry didn't know anything about the adoption process. In fact, he had to admit, he obviously didn't know much about being a real father….

When, they arrived home from the hospital with the twins in hand (or in car seat in hand, as it were), Siobhan went straight upstairs to take a nap, leaving Henry to care for the babies. Luckily, they were asleep as well, so it wasn't like he needed to feed them…yet. He thought about bringing down Dash and Becks's old crib from the attic, but that was more trouble than it was worth. They looked comfortable enough. Maybe later that night he would set it up for them.

He sat down on the couch and turned on the TV. He eventually found _Star Wars: Episode IV_ on Spike and was pretty interested, but by the time the infamous garbage scene started, his mind went back to the little twins asleep on the floor.

The doctor had said that one of them, Portia, most likely had cerebral palsy, but the severity of it would not be able to be detected until a few months later, when she started to crawl and use her motor skills. Looking at her, even in a sleeping position, Henry could tell that her legs were oddly limp in comparison to Regan's, which were still very much in a fetal position.

He wondered how Andrew would take that, finding out that he had a daughter who might be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Would he be strong enough to handle it?

With Bridget he would be, if they ever got back together. There were certainly some things Henry had to admit that he envied about the relationship that Andrew and Bridget had had, no matter how fake Andrew thought it was. Ever since that night when Andrew got shot and Henry had to meet Bridget and Juliet in the hospital, he had felt how real it was.

The way she had cried for him, when Siobhan would have done nothing short of empty his pockets had she been there, the way she held onto Juliet, when months before Siobhan had said the girl wasn't worth a damn. Yes, he had seen real love that day, and he couldn't help thinking it was the first time in his life he had _ever_ seen it.

Siobhan even knew how real it was.

He thought of sending Andrew a picture of the girls, since he had to let him know that Siobhan would be coming over to his house tomorrow, anyway. Maybe Andrew wouldn't appreciate it, but he'd get over once he had them as his own.

He made the decision and pulled out his cell phone.

* * *

Rock Springs, Wyoming

In a twist of horrible fate, Erin arrived almost an hour late to the crime lab. She had barely had time to drink her coffee when she had to run out the door, when, halfway down the road, there was a huge traffic jam that last for at least fifteen minutes. Apparently, a log truck had caught fire, a sign that the great Wyoming drought was coming!

When she got to the lab, or rather, after her car screeched to a halt in front of the building and she almost fell on her knees from jumping out so fast, she noticed the fresh morning dew that she was so accustomed to was gone. Yeah, she must have been late.

The big ugly fish in the tank eyed her suspiciously as she walked through the door (One of these days, she was determined to have it for dinner). The receptionist, Maggie, smiled at her and told her to come on back to the lab.

"It's ok, sweetie. Everybody's late once," she said.

Like that made her feel any better. She absolutely hated being late, especially for a job that could determine her future, and especially this late into the job. It was almost over! She only had two weeks before she had to turn her reports into her teacher and then it was back to bookwork. Maybe Steve would forgive her, but the others, she wasn't sure.

"Sorry I'm late, everybody," she breathed, her face growing hot as she walked into the back room. Her lips were dry and crusted now. She wished she could close her mouth better, but it would just be even worse by Tuesday, when she would get her braces tightened. "There was a wreck on the road."

She looked around. There was Steve, Bruce and June, who were two other body examiners, Kate (another body examiner who also doubled as a lawyer for the county and was usually off at city hall yelling at the mayor; this was the first time Erin had seen her in about three weeks), Agent Machado, a couple of other police officers that Erin had seen a few times before, and Greg, whose occupation Erin was unsure of. He only worked Thursdays and Fridays and was usually fixing something. Today, it looked like it was a lighting fixture above one of the bodies, the one Kate was examining. It was a white male, bald, and with very yellow teeth. Maybe a homeless person. There had been a few of those in the past. It was odd how many there were in Rock Springs. Then again, they were on the druggie side of town.

"That's fine," said Steve. "Kate's taking over, anyway."

That was probably why she wasn't around much. She was such a control freak that Steve limited the amount of time she could actually be in the building, surely. Erin didn't understand why he didn't just fire her. She made plenty of money as a lawyer, so she really had no need for two jobs. Bruce and June were her tool-handling, clipboard-holding robots today, as they were every time she was here.

"So," Steve looked as though he wanted to avoid the subject of Erin's lateness in the presence of others, so he tried to change the subject and instead recap what she had missed. "The DNA matched Ward's."

"Ok." Was that something she should have been happy about? "What now?"

"I'll go to South Carolina and tell his sister today, and then I'll head to New York tomorrow to tell the Martins. They were close with him," said Machado. His look was unreadable. Erin knew that he had known the victim pretty well. Were they friends? Or maybe Machado was just the dead guy's "guidance counselor" of sorts. Did every recovering drug addict have a police officer follow them around to make sure they stayed clean? Erin would imagine so. It was hard to stay in line unless you had someone with real force backing you up.

"Why don't you just give them a call?" she asked. She felt like a complete douche bag when Greg gave her the response.

"It's just courtesy," he said, as he wrenched the light out of the metal lamp. It was dusty and orange-looking, like it hadn't been replaced in years. " 'Cause, you know, police do so much to actually find out whose bodies are whose, it's basically an insult to not come over and comfort the family when the results come back positive. It really is a blow to them if they just hear it over the phone. Wouldn't it be to you?" He said it accusingly, as though it were obvious.

"Well, yeah," she said. "I'd feel bad. I guess it shows you care if you do it in person."

She had heard of this one instance where a boy was missing for a very long time and was eventually found dead. It turned out a serial had done it, but the Chief of Police himself made it his duty to inform the boy's mother at her house. Erin guessed people like that were competent policemen, at least, because they knew a body was a real person and not just a paycheck or day's work.

"So, what's the deal with this thing?" Greg changed the subject abruptly and gestured to the man with yellow teeth. It was ironic that Greg was now mirroring the exact type of scum that Erin had just been thinking about: the type that thought a dead body was of emotional significance to absolutely no one. Huh. Well, there were two sides to everyone.

"Looks like an OD," Kate said, snapping her fingers like a crab at June, signaling for her to give her something. A scalpel, it turned out to be. She started to make an incision in the abdomen, near the liver. That meant Erin would need to hurry and get her coat on before Kate assigned her to something that involved handling organs.

* * *

There was a loud crash from the top floor of the shelter as Juliet bumped into a rack full of clean water bowls and sent the whole thing toppling over. She was so distracted that she had no idea what she was doing. What was she even supposed to _be_ doing now? Getting fresh hay?

She had spent the entire morning trapped in a fog, doing everything on auto pilot, and she finally had come back to Earth right when the last bowl hit the ground. It couldn't have been because of the wine, because, honestly, she hadn't drunk that much. In fact, she had only taken a sip or two before Andrew broke the bottle. She didn't remember eating or brushing her hair this morning, though (and judging by the rumbling of her stomach and the way her hair kept flying in her face, she probably hadn't done either). In fact, she hadn't even taken a shower or changed her clothes last night. Had she even seen her father before she left? No. He was probably deliberately trying to avoid her.

She did vaguely recall Andrea sending her a text, the first sign that her love-sick friend was still around (or still cared about her) in a week. She had said something about Ellie. Maybe she finally taken off her eye patch, or even better, got expelled from school.

"Are you ok, honey?" Patricia, a heavy-set woman with green hoop earrings was standing over her. She smelled like vinegar, the stuff they used to disinfect the cages whenever a new rabbit was coming in and had a freshly filled food bowl in her hand. "You seem kind of…out of it."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Juliet grunted, picking up several of the bowls at once, only to have one fall out of her hand again. Luckily, none of them actually broke.

"It's ok, honey," said Patricia. "I'll take care of it. You can go feed Penelope. She's the last one left on the left side."

_Great_. Juliet took the bowl from her "co-worker" and proceeded over to a white rabbit with a bridle-like pattern on her face. She was one of the nicer one, Juliet had discovered yesterday, and just loved it when anyone stopped to rub her on the head.

"Hey, Penelope," Juliet said sadly. "I bet you're happy in there." She slid the lock back to open the cage and was very surprised when the little rabbit hopped over from her spot in her litter box and held her head low near Juliet's hand. "Ok, sure."

Penelope closed her eyes in bliss as Juliet rubbed her head, giving the teenage girl her first happy thought in a while. Rabbits were so lucky. They didn't have to deal with complicated matters of the human world nor did they understand them. But, that ignorance somehow made Juliet feel better because it meant Penelope wasn't judging her or anyone else. She just wanted to be loved.

"Juliet?" Wilma's voice came from somewhere behind her.

"Yeah?" she turned around, afraid that if she didn't move her hand quick enough, Penelope might try to bite it because she stopped petting her.

"You have a phone call." The matron of the shelter was standing in the foot of the doorway with the landline cordless in hand.

Juliet's heart filled with dread. She didn't want it to be her father and she wasn't sure she wanted it to be Bridget, either. Could she handle a woman's breakdown when she was practically going through one herself?

"It's London," Wilma said even before Juliet had the chance to ask.

Well, that made her feel a bit better. If anyone could bring any light at all to a situation, it was London Sheridan.

"London? What are you doing?" Juliet asked as soon as the phone was in her hand and she had moved over near the linen closet where no one could hear her. She wasn't very good at preambles, especially when she was frazzled. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"Of course, I am. I have third period lunch, remember? I'm just in the bathroom so no one can see I'm using my phone, and…. trying to console Lindsay at the same time. She turned in her essay and it was, like, half a page long, and Miss Summers took one look at it and gave her an F in front of the entire class. She's freaking out now."

"Oh. Ok." If she didn't do her work, what else was she supposed to say? "Tell her I'm sorry" finally came out.

"No, she's a fool. She knows she was supposed to do her homework. I really am just being nice trying to make her feel better, because, really, she _doesn't deserve it. _If she had read the book—" Lindsay said something incomprehensible from the background "—Yes you did, Lindsay! I had Miss Summers last semester. She gives you the book, like, two months in advance. You had _plenty _of time! Anyway, Juliet, I wanted to tell you that I'm really sorry about what happened between your dad and Bridget. I didn't want to call your cell 'cause I figured he might have it. Are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Juliet lied. "How is Bridget doing?"

"She's ok, I guess," replied London uncertainly. Juliet imagined her shrugging. "She cried a lot last night. That's for sure. But she seemed a bit better this morning before I left. Mom wanted to take her out somewhere for the day, but she wanted to go job hunting. So I guess she's trying to move passed it all, which is good. It's healthy for her, and she's a strong woman, anyway. Hopefully, she'll be ok."

And that was what Juliet loved about Bridget. She had conquered so much and would keep doing it no matter what happened in her life.

"How is he?" London asked.

"No idea," Juliet spoke monotonously as she touched the corner of her lip where she remembered cutting herself on the bottle last night. It was dry. "And I don't give a shit. I sure did school him, though."

Oh no! A slip of the tongue. London had no idea about the Ponzi scheme or any of that stuff. It wouldn't be a good idea to elaborate. She needed to be careful.

"What do you mean?" London asked.

"I just mean I said it to his face that he was a horrible person for throwing her away like that. That's all." Hopefully, it got something out of him, the pathetic asshole.

"Well, everything'll work out for the best," said London. "Don't you worry."

But, Juliet doubted that. Nothing would ever work out the way she wanted.


	12. The Revelation

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Here's Chapter Twelve! Please remember to review and tell me how you like it! I won't be able to know what I'm doing right or wrong if you guys don't tell me, so please give me some constructive feedback! And just so everyone knows, I am in no way promoting any religious preferences in this story. It's only logical with Andrew's background. You'll see what I mean.

Thank you,

Love,  
May

**Chapter Twelve: The Revelation**

There was a light breeze coming in from the window. He had forgotten to close it yesterday morning. It was actually strong enough to ruffle his hair a bit. Andrew awoke around seven o'clock, but he did not get out of bed. He heard Juliet banging around the house before the elevator door opened, but he didn't want to go see her and he was sure she didn't want to see him. He had cleaned up both her mess in the foyer and his mess in his office last night for half an hour, but other than that, he hadn't left his room.

He was in shock and awe at what Juliet had done last night. After everything she had done, she had had the nerve to try to get drunk right in front of his face! He didn't know what else to do with her. He couldn't send to live with Catherine. Jail certainly hadn't done anything to fix her. What else was left to do to make things right?

But the reason for why she did it was even more shocking. She had been trying to make a statement, but to what avail? Was she right?

His daughter had very much gone downhill since Bridget had left, and she was obviously convinced that Bridget was telling the truth about loving them.

He started thinking everything over in his head. Someone who truly loved his daughter would have helped her get through an addiction, would have been there for her whenever she needed her and then some. The night Juliet had been found throwing up in the bathroom, Bridget got down on her knees and comforted her as she vomited. It was the first night he had noticed a real change in "Siobhan," and his heart felt strangely warm at seeing her, more so than it had in such a long time. The real Siobhan would have merely scolded her, said she was a horrible girl, and elected to sending her straight to a mental institution, just as she had with boarding school. Whereas Catherine would have smacked her around until she convinced her not to do drugs or would have been so God damned drunk herself that she wouldn't have cared.

But not Bridget. Bridget had taken it upon herself to build a relationship with Juliet. She had talked to her like a trusted counselor, trying her hardest to make things right with whatever issues Juliet had. She had even punched Juliet's teacher in the face after discovering that he had supposedly raped her. Siobhan would have said she was lying, and Catherine would have accused her of leading him on (had she not been the orchestrator of the whole thing in the first place). Bridget had even been the one Juliet had confided in about mother's entire scheme. Had Bridget really loved her that much? Would someone who was a complete fake go to such great links as that to pretend to care?

He shook his head and tried go back to sleep, flipping his pillow over. He didn't want to get out of bed today, as if he had anywhere to go. No job, no friends, and needless to say, no wife. He might as well enjoy as much sleep now as he possibly could. He had never been able to sleep this much before.

Ten minutes later, he was still awake and pondering Bridget.

He and Juliet were certainly reliving the days before Bridget all over again. That was just a fact. Juliet was going crazy. She was attacking other girls and getting drunk to get his attention, and she probably would do a lot worse if she had the opportunity, and if he didn't do something fast. She was positively losing control without Bridget, which didn't make him feel any better about himself, and _he_ was just as sad and miserable as he had been with Siobhan. Had he been wrong to force Bridget out of their lives?

Maybe he had. Ignoring his own problems and feelings, he knew it was his fault that Juliet was messed up in the first place. Leaving her alone with Catherine and allowing her to do whatever she wanted, _giving _her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it, had made him a horrible father, no matter what anyone said, and Bridget had mended all of that.

He remembered the day before he was shot how Juliet had desperately wanted him to do something to bring "Siobhan" back into their lives.

"_We _do _need Siobhan," _she had said_. "She makes us better." _

It was the truth, of course. Never in their lives had the entire Martin family been closer than they had in the time that Bridget had been with them. Juliet and Andrew had actually stopped fighting and had just discovered what it was like to be a happy father and daughter. Bridget had made them complete in a way they had never been before.

He didn't want Juliet to be hurt by anyone else. He didn't want to make a mistake, but ever since last night, what he had witnessed his daughter doing in the past few weeks after so much progress, he was questioning everything.

So what if he _had_ made the mistake of kicking her out? So what if he brought Bridget back into Juliet's life? What then? What did that mean for the two of them, for him and Bridget?

He knew he was no saint, and he supposed Juliet was right in yelling at him. He would have preferred that she do it in a better way, one that didn't involve him having to put his hands on her and smashing a bottle to the ground. But, he had done a horrible thing in stealing so much money. How much was it? He wasn't sure exactly. Forty million dollars probably. Somewhere around there.

He looked around at the ceiling, at the paintings on the walls, at the nude sculpture on his dresser. He had to admit that half of what he had in the room, and in fact, in the entire apartment had been a waste of money on Siobhan's part, and God knew what else she had spent his money on. Most likely Henry. But, that was beside the point. The point was that it had all been obtained unfairly and illegally, and Andrew had done it all with his eyes open.

The Ponzi scheme was another issue that brought Bridget back into his mind. At first, he didn't think their situations were the same at all, but now…. He remembered how horrible he felt when Bridget had come to him about it, accusing Olivia of being the culprit. He remembered the way his stomach dropped, the way his face grew hot and pale with her ignorance, and, worst of all, the ghostly expression that came across her face when he told her the truth. Andrew had tried to explain himself, saying that he thought he could trust her, but she wouldn't have it. He was crushed, as if every burden the world could have was now burying him under all its weight.

Had she felt the same way? She had cried. She had tried to explain herself, just as he had, saying that she had to protect herself, that she had nowhere else to turn, that night when she had been forced to reveal her secret, just as he had been forced to reveal his, and he had said something similar, about having nowhere else to turn, that the scheme was only temporary and that he hadn't meant to do any damage.

Half of him didn't know why he cared so much. She had lied, lied, _lied_ to him about who she was and about countless other things! That was why he had smashed her photo, why he had kicked her out in the first place. Why did he care?

He sighed irritably and turned over on his side, his stomach squeezing into a huge ball of longing and confusion. Because he was madly in love with her, or with the woman he had thought she was, anyway. That was why he cared so much. He would be fooling himself if he said he wasn't. In fact, it would be an even bigger lie than any other there ever was if he denied it. It was why he had _kept_ her photo and the poem he was going to read her for their vow renewals in the first place.

He didn't know what to do. He had thought he had been living an illusion and that everything was fine now, and that he could move on, be strong, be a man, but not after last night. He went back to what she said the night he kicked her out of the house after she confessed her secret.

"_I needed to believe that you might forgive me, that somehow you might love me for me." _

It was something he had always wanted with a woman, for her to love him for him. Catherine and Siobhan had never done that. They had married him for his money and that was all. Well, maybe it had been for love at first, in the beginning, but it sure didn't stay that way for long. In a matter of three months tops, it had become obvious to him that both of his marriages were in jeopardy. Catherine began caring about nothing but diamonds, make-up, and alcohol. That was what had caused him to turn his toward Siobhan. _Her _turning away during their marriage was something else entirely. She became distant, cold, and bitter. But, both women changed for reasons he knew not what.

Catherine had turned out to be a psychotic murderer, and once Siobhan knew about the Ponzi scheme, she had wanted nothing more than to expose him, to throw him in jail. She wouldn't have stuck by him for one moment, and she didn't. She had walked out without him even knowing it.

On the other hand, Bridget had been willing to stay with him. She had at least acted like she cared about_ him_ and had forgiven him for his wicked ways. Why would she pretend like that?

He turned over on his side again, this time toward what was once the side of the bed that had belonged to both his wives. Catherine had rarely slept in it, as she had insomnia and would usually fall asleep on a couch in the living room or in some random place in the apartment. Alcohol hadn't exactly helped this habit, either. Once, when Juliet had to be no more than two, he had even found her mother asleep under the dining room table with two empty Merlot bottles. That was when he had come to realize just how badly she had been addicted to alcohol.

Siobhan had always tried to lie as far away from him as possible, drugged asleep by Ambien or some special prescription given to her by her doctor, touching him once in a blue moon. She would give excuses, saying that she needed her space, that the thought of being too affectionate bothered her. _What?_ If only he had been smart back then, he would have realized sooner that she was cheating on him. All the signs had been there.

But, Bridget….Oh, God, Bridget had been wonderful. He and Bridget had made love in that bed more times than he had with Catherine and Siobhan combined. He loved it, not just because of pleasure, but because she had acted as though she had really wanted to be with him, the way she caressed him, the way she kissed him. It all seemed so real, the love he felt those countless times they had spent naked under the cool sheets.

He remembered the day after he came home from the hospital, the day after Juliet had been found in the Hamptons. He couldn't move from his spot on the bed, and yet she stayed beside him all day and never complained. It was as if she truly didn't want to be anywhere else but with him.

_He opened his eyes to sunlight pouring into his room. This was the first time in forever that he had actually woken up well after dawn. He didn't even remember the last time he had done so. His right arm was still in a sling, and the doctor said it would have to stay like that for at least a week. His chest was still killing him. The pain was so bad that it was spreading to his back, and he couldn't move for another three days. Immobility was critical, as the doctor had said. _

_The door to his room opened and in walked "Siobhan," wearing a dark blue camisole and checkered pajama pants, the same outfit she had worn to bed last night. She was carrying a washrag in her right hand._

"_You're awake!" She said happily, giving him a big smile, which had become standard fairly recently. A kiss on the lips and ruffling of his curls followed. "How are you feeling?" _

"_Better," he replied, hoarser than he would have liked. He tried clearing his throat, but it only made his chest hurt worse._

"_I'll get you some water," she said. She grabbed the glass from his night stand and came back a few minutes later with it filled to the top. "Here you go. This might help." _

_He lifted his head to drink it, slowly, so that it wouldn't go down his throat too fast. Luckily, it was room temperature so it wouldn't burn. _

"_Siobhan" sat down on her side of the bed and waited for him to finish. _

"_Thanks," he smiled. _

"_Of course," she said lovingly. "Anything for you." She settled herself under the blankets and rested her head next to his. _

"_What were you doing?" he asked, eyeing the rag she still had. _

"_Oh, ha ha. Just doing some cleaning," she mused, throwing the rag off the bed. _

"_Cleaning? Really?" He was surprised. Cleaning used to be Siobhan's mortal enemy. She would spend hours on end interviewing housekeepers just to clean up a spot on the rug. He had to wonder, though: What was she doing all day that she couldn't clean up a spot? _

"_Yeah. Juliet made a mess this morning before she went to school. Spilled her cereal all over the place. I told her I'd get it, and then I just kept going and starting polishing all the vases. I was surprised. They really needed it."_

"_Is she doing alright?" he asked. He just realized that they hadn't gotten around to talking about his daughter's running away last night. _

"_Siobhan" sighed and ran her fingers throw his hair again. She looked down, as if she didn't want to go into it. "She's doing ok. It's just Catherine, is all. She didn't want to go to Miami with her." _

_He nodded. He loved how Juliet was finally able to come to someone for things, rather than drown her problems in alcohol. "Thanks for talking to her," he said. _

"_Of course," she responded as though it were only natural and stroked his long nose with her finger. _

_He chuckled in annoyance, but not really. He felt great when she did that. "So, are you doing anything today?" he asked as she entwined her fingers with his. _

"_No," she said matter-of-factly. "I'm spending the entire with my superhero husband." _

_He chuckled lightly. "Superhero? Hardly. After all I've done? No."_

_She shook her head and began planting butterfly kisses on his forehead. "Any man who would jump in front of a bullet for me is a superhero, and there is no one else in the world I'd rather be with. Even if you can't move. I love you and I'm gonna stay with you. Forever." _

"_I love you, too," he said, feeling like the luckiest man in the entire world to have a woman who loved him so much. _

The real Siobhan would have made any excuse to get away from him. There was no doubt about that. She would have probably gone off to the St. Mark's to lay Henry or Tyler or countless other men and then come back three days later, expecting him to have healed miraculously. But Bridget hadn't done that.

Was her love really fake?

He finally got out of bed around twelve o'clock. He didn't eat or shower or even leave his room. Instead, he took the folded piece of paper off his night stand. It was a bit dusty and creased, of course, but he could still read his vows. The ink was even strong enough to withhold smudging from the tears that were falling on the words.

"_There is my dove, my loved one._

_None to her can compare. _

_Her beauty shames the day star_

_And makes the darkness light._

_A day in her radiant presence grows _

_Seven times more bright."  
_

He sighed and wiped his eyes. He had to think logically. She was a prostitute, a drunk, a junkie. How could she have been telling the truth? He paced around his room, starting to get a headache.

_You're a crook_, said the imaginary voice inside his head. _How could _you _have been telling the truth to her?_

He walked into the bathroom and poured himself a glass of water from the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was pale, had bags under his eyes. He imagined he didn't look so different after he was shot.

"You have to be sensible," he said, looking himself straight in the eye. "You can't make the wrong decision."

What was real? What was fake? Could he really trust a woman like her? Were their situations really the same? Could it be that they were so meant to be that their lives mirrored each other?

Or was he just fooling himself?

Was she worth a second chance? She had certainly given him one, and why had Catherine and Siobhan so elected to _not_ give him a second chance?

That was when he suddenly remembered a story from the Bible that he had known since he was a child. He had to admit that he hadn't read it in a while. It wasn't that he no longer believed in the Christian values of his youth. He certainly did. He just had a hard time following them, and living with Catherine and Siobhan, two women who couldn't care less about God, hadn't exactly helped him.

It was the parable of the Good Samaritan. A Jewish man was walking down the road, beaten and robbed, and left to die. Then, a priest and a Levite both passed him by. He thought they would help him, because they were known to be righteous men in the eyes of the Jewish people. Yet, they both left him there to die as well. Finally, a Samaritan, someone who was known to despise Jews and was probably the most unlikely person to ever help them, came by, brought him to an inn, and cleaned his wounds, nursing him back to health and giving him a new outlook on life.

Andrew lifted up his shirt and stared, long and hard, at the scar on his chest, the scar he had gotten for Bridget, not for anyone else. Catherine had set up the shooting, and Siobhan wouldn't have been disappointed had he not survived it. Bridget was the only one to stay by his side.

It was obvious. He was the fallen man. Catherine and Siobhan were the priest and Levite, and even the robbers themselves. Catherine had been the one with gun, the one who shot him down, and had scurried by just to make sure no one saw her, and Siobhan had merely come along to empty his pockets.

He had thought time and again Siobhan and Catherine were the ideal women that he would have wanted to marry. They weren't rich or college educated, but they were smart and appeared to be kind and everything he wanted at first. Then, they left him to die without any love in their hearts. They would have no sooner taken his money and ran. In fact, Juliet was right. They probably would have even bludgeoned him to death without a second thought had he not been killed instantly that night. They were fake. They were frauds. But, Bridget, the immoral woman, whom no one ever thought would be righteous, saved him from death, from continuing to be the crook that he was. She was the Samaritan, the unexpected one who loved him and his daughter unconditionally.

Growing up, his mother had always told him that God answered prayers in ways people least expected, and he realized right then that she was right.

His crying became harder, his sobbing more profuse.

It was real. Bridget's love for them had to have been real. There was no other explanation for everything she had done.

And if so, he had to have her back. He had to ask, to _beg_ for her forgiveness. He couldn't stand living without her and having her think he was a heartless man. She probably thought he was the biggest hypocrite in all world, and he wouldn't have blamed her if she did.

He threw on a pair of jeans and a light jacket, brushed his teeth, shaved, and was just about to run out the elevator door when he remembered that he had forgotten his phone. He had to text Juliet and tell her what he was doing, to thank her for letting him see the truth, even if her method of doing so was one he did not approve of.

He ran back into his room and grabbed it off the night stand, when he noticed he had a text message:

"_Siobhan coming to PA tomorrow. 3 o'clock." _

* * *

Greer had wanted to take Bridget out for a day of fun to get her mind off everything that had happened last night, but it seemed like everything she thought about doing ended up having more to do with Andrew than she thought. Her first idea was to go shopping. That was a bust, because for Bridget, shopping meant buying expensive things, expensive things reminded her of life as Siobhan, and life as Siobhan reminded her of Andrew. Greer's second idea burned to the ground as well. To go see a movie. How harmful could that be? Well, certainly harmful when half the movies were romantic dramas. _The Vow _was even at the top of the list at the dollar theatre.

Bridget had decided it would be best if she went job hunting again. She needed to get back on her feet soon. She couldn't live off her friend for the rest of her life, no matter how much Greer insisted she could stay. She had to move on and get her life on track again.

As if it were on track before.

Greer took the initiative and had elected to going with her. Bridget had accepted, and so they spent the day going from place to place to see if anyone was hiring, and everything, _everything _reminded Bridget of Andrew, from the advertisements on the streets (There was one for a perfume entitled "Forbidden Love") to music in all the shops ("Listen to your heart," the Rockettes remake by DHT had played three times). The results were few: a bakery, a low-end show store, a pizzeria, a bookstore, a TJ Max. It wasn't surprising at all to Bridget, but she figured it was better than nothing. She would just have to keep trying until she got something, and if these were her best bets, she had to make a good impression on the owners. She had made sure to finish and turn in her applications right then and there, in front of the cashier.

She wasn't exactly sure she wanted to be hired at the pizzeria, however. The cashier there had been a bit too nosy and rude, and that was an understatement if there ever was one. Bridget had made the mistake of asking about maternity leave before she turned in her application, saying that she was about six weeks pregnant and needed to know if she would get any benefits during her third trimester if she had any issues with working.

The cashier responded with a hurtful comment. It was a sincere comment, showing she meant well, but far too assuming for Bridget to brush off.

"Oh, I see." She looked at her sympathetically. "He was a drunk and he kicked you out. Yeah, I had a friend like that. He'd get hammered and beat her, like, every night. She _finally _left. She _had _to. Five months pregnant." She shook her head. "It was so sad."

As would be expected, Bridget was very taken aback that someone would assume that Andrew, of all men in the world, was abusive toward her. In fact, she was utterly disgusted by the thought. She felt sick to her stomach, and promptly left after excusing herself hesitantly.

Greer had heard the entire conversation and looked to be very much in shock as well. She told Bridget to ignore comments like that, saying that people are ignorant and don't know what you've been through.

They stopped at a café for lunch, and Greer gave her some advice on what to do in interviews. That is, if Bridget ever got one.

"It's best to always tell them what they want to hear," she said between bites of a tuna salad sandwich. "It's the best way to get hired."

Yeah, she knew that. Her mind kept going back to her interview with Bodaway Macawi and taking off her bra to show her boobs. That was exactly what he had wanted to hear.

They went around a few more areas without luck and were just about to go home when Bridget noticed a "Now Hiring" sign in a Hallmark store on Second Avenue. She had always liked those stores growing up, not only because everything was so inspirational, but also because they reminded her so much of her maternal grandmother, an Irish woman who had loved collecting ornaments and wall decorations from all over. Bridget's personal favorite in her grandmother's collection was a heart-shaped wooden plaque with two doves that stated "Peace of mind comes from peace of heart." Huh. How applicable it was now.

She walked into the door and was instantly bombarded by the sunlight reflecting off of wind chimes.

"Welcome to Hallmark," a woman's cheery voice said. "How may I help you today?"

_If you'd give me a second to _see, Bridget thought irritably. "Umm…" She almost ran into a shelf full of Precious Moment angels, but caught herself just in time. "My name is Bridget and I saw you guys were hiring. Could I possibly—?"

"Yes you may!" The woman responded before Bridget could finish. She was an older red-headed woman, a bit on the heavy side, who was positively covered in freckles. Her name tag read "Melody" and "Assistant Manager." Boy, if the assistant manager had had to resort to running the cash register, they must have needed more people. "We just lost a few people last week. One woman got transferred to another story, another one's going to the University of Georgia this summer for an internship, and another one's moving to Mexico. Don't ask."

She took an application out from under the drawer and handed it to Bridget with a flourish. "Here you go. We actually need someone for openings on Wednesdays and Fridays and afternoons on the weekends. As you can imagine, we get our biggest crowd on the weekends and holidays, but there's always these older women who come in every day, and always manage to find something different to buy. I swear, it's been five years and not one of them has made a double purchase."

"Interesting," said Bridget, even though she couldn't care less. She just wanted to fill out the thing and go on to the next one. She took the application and looked around for a place to write. Predictably, Hallmark was the last place to fill anything out. There were no desks or tables, just a bunch of shelves full of breakable items.

"Do you have a clipboard or something I could write on?" Bridget finally asked. "I wanted to fill this out now."

"Uh, sure," Melody replied, as though she had never had anyone make that request before. She rummaged back through the drawer and pulled out one of those transparent bright yellow ones. It had marketing targets all over it. It looked like the store had done quite well this past month.

"Thanks," said Bridget.

She found a corner that she could go sit down in, as there was no room anywhere else. Greer, whom Bridget had very nearly forgotten about, was over in the Christmas ornament section, and gave her a thumbs-up, as though this would be the ideal place to work. Bridget had a feeling Greer was going to become one of those older women Grace had been talking about. Although, if she turned out to be anything like Grandma Eileen, Bridget wouldn't mind.

Bridget filled out the application fast and as thoroughly as she possibly could, even though "thoroughly" wasn't very thorough at all. Since she had no resume, there was nothing really she could say about her experience, except a month in high school where she had to volunteer at the library. She only had one day at the rabbit shelter, so that wouldn't do much good, either. So, instead, she had decided to focus on her personality, or at least what Greer had said about her personality: she was kind, good with people, a dedicated worker. She supposed those things were true, or at least she had tried her best to make them true.

When she was finally finished and had turned her application in, five people had already walked up to the cash register to pay for their decorations, and judging by the chaos, Melody seemed to already have a spot for her, because she was very eager to have her come back tomorrow for an interview with the hiring manager. She scanned her computer for a time.

"She'll be in tomorrow from nine to four, and it looks like…" she scrolled down a bit, "she doesn't have any interviews scheduled after two-thirty. Would that be a good time for you?"

"Of course," Bridget replied enthusiastically. Her heart was pounding. She couldn't believe she had finally gotten an interview after not even a day. That had never happened before, not even with Macawi, who had had three hundred other women lined up to strip in front of him. She would have assumed he would have wanted to see all the women as fast as he could. "I'll be here."

"Good," Melody smiled. "Dress to impress, relax, and you'll do fine."

She shook Bridget's hand warmly before hurrying back to the next costumer in line, an elderly woman in a wool sweater.

"Come on," Greer popped up from behind her. "We'll go find you a nice outfit for tomorrow."

Bridget tried to protest. "Oh, you don't—"

"Oh yes, I do!" Greer said stubbornly. "It's a big day for you. It'll be a first-job present from me."

Well, as far as Bridget was concerned, Greer had been giving her far too many presents recently. But, she knew there was no point in arguing now. Greer wasn't going to change her mind.

"Alright. Let's go."

"Do you want to look around any, first?" asked Greer. Bridget couldn't tell if Greer just wanted to look some more or if she actually wondered if Bridget wanted to do so.

"No, I'm fine," said Bridget.

But, just as they were heading out the door, something caught Bridget's eye. She knew it shouldn't have. She knew she should have just walked away without a second thought, ignored it, whatever. But she couldn't. Because on a shelf near the door on the right hand side was a beautiful poem. Ironically, it was entitled "Mother," yet everything in it reminded her of Andrew. In fact, she knew it instantly upon seeing it that, had she had the opportunity, this poem would have been her vows to him on their wedding day.

"_If I could give you diamonds_

_For each tear you cried for me_

_If I could give you sapphires_

_For each truth you've helped me see._

_If I could give you rubies_

_For the heartache that you've known_

_If I could give you pearls_

_For the wisdom that you've shown_

_Then you'll have a treasure,_

_That would mount up to the skies_

_That would almost match _

_The sparkle in your kind and loving eyes_

_But I have no pearls, no diamonds,_

_As I'm sure you're well aware_

_So I'll give you gifts more precious:_

_My devotion, love, and care."_

* * *

Juliet finally arrived home from the rabbit shelter around six o'clock in the evening and went straight to her bathroom to take a shower. Andrew had decided to order a small pizza for her, as he didn't feel like cooking. Instead, he ate broccoli and leftover leek soup from two nights ago. He would tell her when she got out.

Predictably, she was still angry with him and did not acknowledge him when she came out in her pajamas with a towel on her head and went straight to the television in the living room.

"Juliet," he said as he sat down on the couch next to her, "I thought about what you said…" She didn't budge. "…and I'm going to apologize to Bridget. Tomorrow. She really is the best thing that's ever happened to us, and I don't want to lose her, especially if it means happiness and stability for you." He didn't want to get into his own personal feelings about Bridget, and he didn't think he needed to, really. Juliet probably knew them, judging by what she had said last night.

She finally turned her head from _Jersey Shore _to look at him, albeit incredulously. "Really?" she asked. The hard look on her face was still there.

"Yes," he emphasized. "I _am_ being serious, and I'm not just doing it because you told me to, I'm doing it because I really want her back. I'm sorry it took you becoming a mess for me to realize how special she was."

A smile slowly formed on her lips. It was very small, but it was still there. "Yeah, she is special." She scooted over next to him. "So, do you love her?" She suddenly sounded like the gossipy, curious teenage girl she had been last month.

He chuckled. "I've always _loved_ her. It's just, I didn't think that it was real until now. At least on her side."

"Yeah, it takes a guilt trip sometimes, doesn't it?"

He sighed. "Yeah, that it does."

She turned her head back to the TV. It had gone on to a commercial now, thank God! He couldn't stand reality TV, especially that show.

"But why not do it right now?" She turned back to him abruptly, evidently upon realizing the show wasn't on. "You know, go over to London's and totally carry her off? I would do that if I were you." Her face grew hard again. "Don't say it's because it's late! Because then I'd know you'd be getting cold feet! You can't be afraid, Daddy! You just have to do it!"

"I'm not afraid," he said honestly. Truthfully, he wanted nothing more than to get it over with, to just tell her how he felt, but he couldn't just yet.

He had to confront Siobhan first.

"There's just some things I have to do before," he finally said.

"Like what?" she asked, skeptically.

"You know Siobhan is with Henry? She's coming over tomorrow."

"Oh, so you're gonna rub it in her face? That's amazing!" Juliet was so happy now that her face actually looked bright. "But," she paused. "Will she try and hurt you?"

He chuckled again. "What could she do? She's just had babies. She's in no condition to hurt anyone." He had never laid a hand on Siobhan in all the years they had known each other, but if he had to, he would. "But if she does, I'll think of something. I could easily overpower her."

"That's true," Juliet nodded. She glanced back at the television and then again at her father. "Is she gonna go to jail?"

"Hopefully not. Not if she leaves us alone after tomorrow. I see jail as a free pass for her. I'd feel much better if she were just thrown out on the street. She might think the opposite, so I'm giving her both options. But, if it does come to jail, it'll be fine. We'll handle it."

"Hmm…" the look on her face told her father that she was pondering this. "You and Bridget won't be able to get married so fast if Siobhan goes to jail, you know."

Something inside him jumped. The word "married" made him feel oddly happy. He hadn't thought about it, but he supposed it would come up soon.

"I suppose."

Juliet leaned against him, smiling the biggest smile in a very long time. "You 'suppose'?" She laughed. "Daddy, why do you have to be so British? You can just say 'I guess.' But, I'm glad everything's gonna be ok."

So did he. "Me too."


	13. Revenge, Forgiveness, Mourning

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Here's Chapter Thirteen! Hope everybody likes it! Please remember to review and tell me what's wrong and what's right!

Love,

May

**Chapter Thirteen: Revenge, Forgiveness, Mourning**

Friday

It was three o'clock on the dot when Siobhan showed up across the street of her old home on Park Avenue, wearing her hair in her usual bun, Gucci sunglasses, and a pearly white Burberry trench coat. She stood there, puffing on her second cigarette of the day, thinking about the glory that was about to ensue.

Soon she would have Andrew's apartment all to herself, and Henry, of course. She only wished he would give up those twins. She didn't know how she was going to live with them for eighteen years and be happy about it. Maybe if she kept pestering, he would agree to put them up for adoption eventually. She didn't know how he could be around children who looked so much like Andrew!

God, she hated Andrew. She wasn't sure why. He hadn't ever done anything to intentionally harm her, barring what turned out to be a dry threat to kill her, something everyone did at least once in their lives, she supposed. Maybe it was because she found him ugly, or maybe it was because he was plain boring what with all of his stupid British pastimes. Horse backing riding, polo, things that she would never be interested in in a million years. Whatever. She didn't care about the reason. Henry was just better all the way around. In fact, compared to Henry, the very idea of her husband made her sick. She wasn't worried about interacting with him, though. She could just be herself and hate him for a few days until the job was done. How difficult was that? She didn't have to pretend like she loved him.

She had tried to hardest to get him arrested, but every attempt had failed thus far. She remembered all those times she had tried to make people think that he had abused her. She would spend hours thinking up ways to bruise herself. Sometimes she would slam herself into the wall or beat the soft tissue in her arms and legs with a hammer, and sometimes, as what she had done to make Tyler suspicious, bang her eye with the knob of a cabinet door. Once, she had even considered shoving a rolling pin up her vagina to make it look like Andrew had raped her, but thought better of it. It would have been more trouble than it was worth. Predictably, though, no one ever took the hint or went looking into Andrew's behavior at all. Her therapist just gave her more drugs and Tyler had just looked at her, shocked that his boss would do such a thing.

It had been a purely hopeless case.

Siobhan finally finished her cigarette and threw the butt on the side walk before heading over to the crosswalk to gain entrance into her apartment complex. The first thing she noticed upon arriving there at the entrance was that Henry was right! They had amped up the security after the Macawi attack. There were two armed guards standing at the entrance. No wonder she couldn't bring a weapon. Those officers were groping like pedophiles everyone who tried to enter! Siobhan didn't care, however. With Bridget pretending to her, the guards would have had to know that she lived there.

Well, that was what she thought before she actually tried walking through the doors.

She smiled and tried to walk right passed, but one of them, a bald one with a huge waistline, put his hand out in front of her.

"May I see your card of residency, ma'am?" he asked. "Without it, I'll have to search you for any weapons or potential weapons that you might be carrying on your person."

_On your person._ She rolled her eyes. It must have been a speech he had had to memorize because no one ever actually said that, unless they were reciting something or just being a smartass. Then again, maybe he _was _saying it on purpose.

"'Card of residency'?" she echoed, snootily. "I live here! I'm Siobhan Martin. Don't you recognize me?" She lifted her sunglasses to show her face more clearly, but they both just shook their heads. Great. She had to come up with a good lie quickly, but since she didn't know anything about what Bridget could have been doing these past few months, she didn't know exactly what to say, so she said the first thing that popped into her head. "I leave here every morning at nine and come back at three! You guys are ridiculous if you don't remember me."

"Sorry, ma'am," said the bald guard. "We don't know of any Siobhan Martin here." What? Didn't they at least have a roster handy that they could check? "We'll have to do a search of your person."

Urgh! God! She lifted her arms and spread her legs. What else could she do?

Predictably, it was as bad as she thought. These men were pervs if she had ever seen any. They were the type of men Bridget would bring home during her stripper days, no doubt about it.

She finally got passed them after what felt like an hour and walked into the lobby toward her elevator. She took her sunglasses off and was about to press the number to her apartment when a woman's voice called out,

"Excuse me, ma'am? May I ask where you're going? You have to check in first."

It was apparently the receptionist. Siobhan wondered what happened to Kenny the Doorman. Had he been a victim of Macawi? Served him right. He was awful. But, _she_ didn't seem to be any better. Her ugly perm and overly precious smile were almost as annoying as Kenny's ugly balding head.

"I live here, ma'am," she said irritably. "I'm Siobhan Martin." Why didn't anyone know who she was?

Didn't Bridget still live here?

"Oh, Siobhan Martin, Yes," the woman—"Linda" was the name on her tag—said. "Your husband said you would be coming back today. How was your trip?"

That explained a lot. But why couldn't he have told the cops that?

"Uh…it was great," she responded. Then she heard herself say, "I…went to the Bahamas."

"The Bahamas?" Linda shrieked excitedly, as though she had never been out of the house her entire life. "I've always wanted to go there, but—"

"I have to go see my husband now," Siobhan interrupted, not wanting to hear another word out of this bitch.

She walked to the elevator briskly and punched in the floor and number to her apartment. As the elevator moved upward, she wondered where Bridget could have really gone, and why she would go there without Andrew. She giggled as a thought came to her mind. What if Bridget had found someone on the side, too? Probably a coked up man whore, much like herself. But, anyway, Andrew was so tasteless that she had to find someone else eventually.

As the elevator door opened, she noticed that there had been a change in the apartment. The hallway looked new, as if it had been redone, and her beloved portrait was missing. But, of course it would be. Macawi had attacked it. Andrew and Bridget couldn't keep it lying around with a hole in it, could they? She stepped out onto the threshold and was expected to be greeted by silence, but quickly found that that wasn't the case at all.

"Hello, Siobhan." A familiar baritone voice rang out, making her heart stop.

What was he doing home?

"H-hello, Andrew," she said as she walked into the living room, trying to sound casual. "What are you doing home?"

"Waiting for you, of course." But, his face wasn't what she expected. If he was as in love with Bridget as deeply as she thought he had been, wouldn't he have at least looked happy to see her? But, no. His face was hard and cold, his eyes intense, but not with love or passion. He was sitting on the couch, sipping tea out of a little gold-rimmed china cup and dressed in jeans and a light jacket. His hair was wet, as though he had just showered, and there was a light smell of aftershave about him.

Why wasn't he at work?

"How have you been?" He asked absentmindedly. "Not that I care. After not having seen a person in nine months, you lose interest in them, especially one who had lost interest in _you_ a long time ago."

She stared at him, more out of confusion and fear as to what he was doing there than anything else. "What do you mean? What are you talking about?"

She tried to look completely clueless, but Andrew obviously wasn't buying it.

"What do you think I'm talking about?" He took another sip of tea and gestured to the tray, which had another cup and a matching teapot perched on it. "Would you like some tea?"

What? It took her a moment to see what he was doing in so abruptly changing the subject.

"Excuse me?" she questioned.

"Bridget loved to have tea with me. We would have tea together every Saturday afternoon. That is, before we went off to make love." He was bragging now, trying to make her jealous and angry. His smiled, and the longing way he said the last sentence said it all. "We loved our afternoon sessions. They were oftentimes more fun than our nights."

He smirked. "Anyway, Henry told me everything. I was surprised he would be so truthful. I thought he was bullshitting me at first, but just to see you here confirms everything. I still hate him with a boiling passion and after this, I won't be talking to him ever again. But, he sure was very thorough in telling me everything you did. Everything from embezzlement to hiding my children to being involved in Gemma's kidnapping. I know you stole money from Martin/Charles to finance your trip to Paris, and I know you were sleeping with Tyler Barrett, how you printed false IDs and were planning on framing your sister for everything you were doing, and how you were going to try to get back in my bed and then hire a hit man to kill me so you could collect my life insurance…."

The look on his face said he was boiling over with anger, but his body language remained calm, so much so that he continued to sip his tea as though nothing were wrong. "And that's why I'm divorcing you."

She was frozen. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. So much was going through her head! Her whole entire plan was crushed…again! Andrew knew about her and everything she had done in the past seven months and had even been expecting her arrival. No doubt he had been lying in wait for her all day, and what was worse, _Henry _was the one to tell him everything! She couldn't believe it! Her one true love had lied to her! He had set her up. A mixture of rage and sadness roared inside of her. She was heartbroken. She wanted to cry, but she was also willing to stab him over and over again with a butcher knife to get her revenge. She just couldn't believe it.

Andrew stood up from the couch and approached her slowly, teacup in hand, looking her up and down, as though surveying every inch of her body as if it were a new specimen of mice. Rabid, disgusting, filthy mice that he couldn't wait to drop a pound of arsenic on.

"Aren't you curious as to how I know I know it's you and not Bridget?" He asked, still sipping his tea. "Well, after finding out about her, I wouldn't even need Henry to tell me you were coming to figure it out. Would you like to know why?"

He didn't wait for a response, not that she had one.

"_You _walk into this house as though the world is under your feet. It's a high, arrogant stance you have, one that tells people you expect them to honor you and do whatever you say. _She _is humble. She walks around with a loving smile and always does what she can to help everyone. I suppose you heard about my little incident? You know, getting shot in the chest? Do you know what Bridget did for me? She stayed by my side every second of every day until I recovered. She wouldn't let me out of her sight. What would you do? Go off and spend the day with Henry, leaving me there, helpless?" He wrinkled his nose. "Plus, the faint smell of those disgusting cigarettes follows you everywhere you go. I can't stand it. Bridget doesn't smoke. Her body's clean and pure in every way." He smiled with an admiring look on his face, as though Bridget the Whore were some sort of hero.

But, Siobhan still didn't move. She couldn't. She was too shocked at what was happening. She could feel her face paling and her knees trembling. She didn't even know what she was more shocked by: the fact that Andrew still loved Bridget even after knowing who she really was or the fact that this had been a set-up. She was half-expecting to faint. Finally, miraculously, after what felt like an eternity, she found her voice, and said what she had wanted to say for months now:

"How could you have fallen in love with that horrible bitch?" she asked, baffled at how Andrew could do such a thing, as she always had been. What did Bridget have that she didn't? Bridget had gotten away with killing Sean. She _deserved_ to be punished. It wasn't fair. It was Siobhan who deserved a happy ending. After everything she had been through, she deserved the life that she wanted. But no, Bridget had ruined everything Siobhan had worked so hard to accomplish. Everything had backfired.

"Did you not hear what I just said? I thought so, though." Andrew said, now only a foot away from her. "I thought you would ask me something like that, that it would be hard for you to comprehend, so I'll put it more blunt terms for you. So here it is:" He shook his head with a smile, chuckling ruefully. "Your sister is _amazing_. She is more radiant and beautiful than you _ever_ have been and _ever _will be. She was my wife, my partner, my lover, and my best friend. In her, I finally found a woman who loved me for me. Not my money, not my accent, just me. She was willing to forgive me for my sins, and she made me a better person because of it. That's why I'm going to ask her to forgive me and tell her how much I love her, because I wasn't the person she deserved. Right now. I just wanted to tell you first."

He smiled cockily and drained his teacup. "Now, I want you to leave. Right this instant. Turn around and walk out. I don't care where you go. I don't care what you do, but if you don't leave in less than three minutes, I'm going to call the police and tell them everything." His voice became very business-like, as though he were dictating rules and regulations out to some new investors. "And you will have _no _objections to this divorce or its conditions, because if you fight or refuse to give me full custody of my daughters when the paternity results come back, I will reveal everything to the police. Same with the divorce papers. If you refuse to sign them, I _will _reveal everything. In fact, why don't you that now? It'll save me some time."

He walked back over toward the couch, where she just noticed his briefcase was sitting. He opened it and took out a bunch of court ordered documents.

Coming back, he looked her deep in the eye, pen in hand. "I'm not afraid of you, Siobhan. Bridget helped me see past that. But, I don't want confrontation nonetheless. I want you to leave quietly. I don't want to have you arrested, but if it has to come to that, if you make it come to that, I won't hesitate. Now sign and leave."

He thrusts the paper into her hands. As she looked down at them, she was almost happy. A divorce from Andrew Martin would probably be the best thing in the world next to seeing him and her sister lying dead in a pool of their own blood. But still. She needed his money, and a divorce would ruin all of that.

There was a sudden _ding _as the elevator door opened and in walked Juliet dressed in hideous shorts and a t-shirt. Her hair was a mess and a horrid smell was wafting off of her. The stupid brat carried with her the odor of a vinegar and ammonia. Whatever she had just been doing, it wasn't prissy work, and she was carrying a big paper bag from Michael's. Since when was she crafty?

But, she waved sassily at her stepmother and stuck out her tongue.

"Hi Siobhan." She mocked. "I'm glad I got out early. I wouldn't want to miss you getting screwed over."

She kept her stance in the doorway cautiously, as though expecting Siobhan to pull out a gun or knife and start attacking one of them and was ready to go scream for help out in the lobby. It figured. Juliet was always running her mouth.

"Please leave, Siobhan." Andrew said, as though Juliet weren't even there. "I'm asking nicely."

"How do you know I won't turn on _you_?" she asked suddenly, starting to get her courage back as she remember that he was in almost as much trouble as she was. "I could tell the whole world about the Ponzi scheme and then you would be ruined! Everything you ever had would be gone just like that!"

She had him now. There was no way he could deny that.

But, he gave her a challenging look nonetheless.

"You don't have any evidence," he said matter-of-factly. "The only evidence you ever had is now in the possession of Tim Arbogast, and he's already saved the company. In fact, it's doing even better without me." More hatred filled his eyes. "And believe me, Siobhan, after what you did to his daughter, he would support me any day if the alternative were you. You know it.…and just so you know _this _as well," he looked her up and down again, "that corset isn't hiding a thing."

Her eyes filled with hot tears of rage. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, crumpling the papers in her hand, but she knew there was no point in harming Andrew. With Juliet watching, she would certainly get caught, and she had nothing to harm him with. Besides, she was angrier with Bridget. But where could she find her? Andrew wasn't going to tell where she was. The only other person she could take her anger out on was Henry, and frankly, she supposed she was more angry with him than with anyone else. She couldn't believe he had misled her, that he had tricked her. He was her beloved, her hero, everything she wanted in a man, yet he had done _this _to her.

"You've lost Siobhan. Now, sign these papers and get out or I will call the police. I swear it." Andrew held up his cell phone, evidently to show her he meant it, but before his fingers could even pretend to dial the buttons, Siobhan had thrown the papers on the ground, pushed Juliet out of the way of the elevator, and stormed out of the apartment.

"'Bye Siobhan! See you never!" Juliet could be heard hollering behind her as the elevator descended.

* * *

Bridget's interview with the hiring manager of Hallmark went much better than she had planned. She had walked in with her head held high and a smile on her face, with hair straightened and wearing light eye shadow and pink lip gloss, and dressed in crisp navy suit jacket and skirt. It might have been a little formal for a retail job, but now at least she had something for more formal interviews in the future, like if she ever decided to go college and get a job afterward, and the suit itself wasn't even that expensive. Only a hundred dollars. Greer had offered to buy her something as high as two thousand, but Bridget had refused. She couldn't let her friend spend that much on her.

The hiring manager was a nice elderly woman named Grace who reminded Bridget a lot of grandmother. In fact, she was probably the only manager slash boss that Bridget could actually say she felt completely comfortable around. The interview started on a warm note and ended on an even warmer one, with Bridget feeling very confident. She had answered all of Grace's questions to a T ("How many hours would you be available per week?" "Right now, forty, until I get farther along in the pregnancy." Luckily, they did offer maternity leave at fifty percent regular pay. Not the best, but better than nothing. "Given that you're pregnant, are you comfortable lifting and rearranging items in the store?" "Yes. As of now, I don't have a trouble lifting anything." "What are some of your strong points?" "I'm very good with people. I smile. I'm polite. I know how to persuade and give people what they want.") Then, she started asking personal questions, which Bridget tried to sugar-coat as much as possible and not into any unsettling details. She explained that she and her husband were going through a divorce. Not the best answer, but Grace had bought it.

Going back to Greer's apartment, Bridget felt quite a bit better than she had in some time. She liked the idea of earning an honest living so that she could to get on her feet. She didn't know how long it would take to save up enough money for her own place, but she wasn't going to worry about it. It would all work out in the end. She returned home around three-thirty and opened the door to find Greer smiling happily.

"How was it?" her friend asked, looking very excited. She must have thought Bridget would get the job right on the spot.

Bridget sighed in relief and smiled back. "It was great. It really was. I think I got it. I don't want to jinx it, but I think I got it."

"Good for you!" Greer said, still with a huge smile on her face. "Come on. I've got a surprise for you."

Before Bridget could respond, Greer grabbed her hand and led her, or rather _ran _her, to the door of the room they used as Jeff's office. Bridget was trying to think of what Greer could have gotten her. She had said she didn't want any more gifts! It was getting to be quite unnecessary and a bit annoying all the same.

"Greer, really, I don't need—"

"Well, you're gonna _want _this when you see it." London had popped out of nowhere wearing some wacky white-and-red knees socks and red overalls. Her hair had blue streaks in it. Apparently, it was Dr. Seuss Day at her school and she was supposed to be Thing One. "Close your eyes!"

"Yeah, Bridget. Close your eyes," Greer said. "I'll open the door for you."

She did as she was told. It was silly, but if that's what they wanted, she would play along. What could they have bought her? It couldn't have been _that _much of a surprise. It wasn't like they could fit a Ferrari in here.

She was even more baffled when the door suddenly shut behind her, but she kept her eyes closed.

"Okay, guys. Are you ready? Can I open them now?"

"Yes, you can open them now."

Her heart stopped. She had thought she would never hear that voice again. It sounded so calm and gentle, a complete contrast to last night's angry and flustered one.

She did as she was told, slowly, and there he was, sitting in a burgundy armchair opposite Jeff's very messy desk. She could smell his cologne from all the way over there, and he was smiling.

"Siobhan came to me today," he began, suddenly looking very serious. "She thought she could come back into my life and just be you, but, of course, she couldn't. That would be impossible."

He rose up from the chair and walked up in front of her until they were merely inches apart. "I told her that you were more radiant and beautiful than she would ever be, and that were my wife…my real wife."

He had tears in his eyes, just as he had the night in the loft, the night he was shot. "I was a fool for letting you go. I should have seen, I should have known, that you were telling the truth when you said you loved me, because no other woman has been there for me like you have."

Her heart was beating so fast as she stared into his beautiful, shining eyes. His tears were rolling down his cheeks now. He began to wipe at them compulsively.

"Like I said," he whispered. "I want to be the man you deserve, and I'm so sorry I haven't been able to be him thus far. I should have believed you when you said you loved me. I should have realized that I was being a hypocrite. I should have remembered right then and there that you stuck by me when I told you my darkest secret." He shook his head as the tears continued to roll. He kept wiping at them, but they kept coming like rain on a windshield.

"I'm so sorry." He shook his head, as though he were ashamed of himself. "I've been living in a hole for the past two weeks. All I could think about was you. You were always, always in my mind. I kept your pictures. I kept the poem that I'd read to you. I couldn't get rid of anything. You were so perfect, but until yesterday, I couldn't see how real it was." He sniffled. "I owe it to Juliet for making me see the truth. She believed in you when I didn't, and I'm so sorry for that. I just want you to forgive me, because I forgive you. I wholly and completely forgive you. I just hope I'm worthy of your forgiveness."

He was sobbing uncontrollably now. She didn't know what to say. Part of her couldn't believe it. Just yesterday, Andrew had said he never wanted to see her again, but now he was begging for her to come back, crying over her, apologizing for everything. How could a man change that fast? That was the skeptical side of her. Standing there, she supposed it might have been the same side Andrew had worked off of for so long concerning her, and, of course, it had been wrong about everything. But, then she realized that hers was the same side that had doubted Andrew's love before he had taken the bullet for her.

She remembered that night in February. His very presence had sent a chill down her spine. She had been so afraid of him, so doubtful that he loved her, so fearful that he would hurt her, until that second gun shot. How wrong her skepticism had been then.

It was as if they were back in that same loft. He was confessing. He was crying. Only now, there was going to be no sad outcome.

"I'll understand if you don't want to forgive me," he said slowly, when she had not responded. "I just thought there might have been hope for us after all. But, I guess you wouldn't want anyone like me."

He wiped his tears and turned his back to her, his sobbing growing louder. But, in that moment, she made her decision.

"Andrew," she whispered softly, reaching out and placing a comforting hand on his back, making him face her. Tears were now streaming down her face as well.

They found each other's eyes, and in an instant, they had found each other's lips and were kissing passionately, their tears mingling as they continued to cry. Bridget knew that it was right. They were meant to be. After so many years, she had finally made the right decision. It had just taken her a while.

Finally, after minutes, it seemed, they broke apart.

"I love you," they both said.

That was when Bridget heard a loud scream from behind her as the door opened and blue hair burst in.

"Mom! Get the camera!" London shouted ecstatically.

But, Greer was already nine steps ahead of her and came snapping photos so crazily that Bridget almost went blind.

"Don't do anything pose-y," she kept saying. "Just keep kissing. I'm putting these in your wedding album."

Greer moved them out of the disheveled office and out onto the back patio, until finally, enough was enough. They needed sometime on their own.

Greer got the hint and offered them the living room couch for privacy, pulling London into her bedroom.

Of course, only when they were finally in a comfortable place alone did they start to get really physical. "Start" was the key word. Soon they were lying down horizontally, Bridget on top, making out like there was no tomorrow. There was a moment when Bridget had the sudden urge to pull down Andrew's pants, but it didn't happen. It couldn't. Not in someone else's house, and Andrew apparently felt the same way, because he stopped unbuttoning her suit jacket rather abruptly. It didn't matter if the owners allowed it. It wasn't right. They could stick to caressing and groping for a few more hours.

That was when she remembered the baby inside of her. She had to let him know, and now would be the perfect time.

"Andrew," she said, as she broke the kiss and sat up, "I need to tell you something."

He looked at her in his inquisitive way. "What?" he asked.

She took a deep breath and held his hands. "I know this might be a shock to you. I know that you might have two other daughters out there, but I have to tell you…." she put his hand on her stomach and his eyes widened. "I'm pregnant."

He sat there, as if in shock. _Of course, he would act like this,_ she thought. Four children was not something a man could take likely. Hell, Bridget wondered if a woman could handle that kind of shock. How were they going to raise Siobhan's daughters, anyway, if indeed they were Andrew's? Would Bridget be their mother?

"Wow," he finally muttered distantly. "Four kids." He took a few breaths and looked out into the distance, almost staring. "But, it's nothing we can't handle." He suddenly smiled, nervously. "If there's anyone I'd want to have a child with, it's you. I'm so happy."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and continued to kiss her.

"So you're not angry?" she asked in between kisses, very glad, but, then again, why would he be angry now? If he wanted her back, there was no reason he should have been angry with her having his baby. The thought was silly.

"Of course not," he said, taking her hand again. "I'm only shocked. I really can't believe I have so many children. I think I might need to get some work done."

Ha ha. She knew what he meant. Oh, it was so good to be back with him. She felt as though she would never have to worry about anything ever again, no matter what happened to her.

It didn't quite throw her Hallmark job out the window, though. She still wanted to earn her own money, maybe even go to college. It could be a reality now, unlike she ever thought before. She would have the support of the man who loved her, and that was all she needed in the world. With Andrew out of work, they could move into a smaller, cheaper apartment somewhere in New York and carry on their lives from there.

But, her thoughts suddenly carried back to Siobhan.

"Why did Siobhan decide to come back to you all of sudden?" Then, she realized: no money. That would be the only reason.

"Money, of course," Andrew said quietly. "That's all she wanted. Her luxurious lifestyle. She never cared about me. Henry was actually the one who told me she was coming."

"Really?" Well, Bridget guessed it wasn't that much of a shock. If Henry truly felt guilty about what he had done, he would at least try to make up for it somehow, even if it failed, and in Henry's case, everything failed.

"Yeah," Andrew sighed. "He told me all these things about how she was planning on taking her role back as my wife and then hiring someone to kill me once she had my money again. I thought it was a bit far-fetched," the look on his face said that was an understatement, "But I didn't want to take any chances. So, I stayed home today, and sure enough, she came, trying to pretend to be you." He smiled, as though Siobhan could never compete with Bridget. How ironic.

"Was she really upset when she found you were waiting for her?" Bridget asked, knowing the answer already.

"Oh, of course," he confirmed, "and she seemed even angrier when I told her I had filed for divorce. I even had the papers for her to sign. I wasn't sure whether or not she would do it. After all, she hates me, so she would want a divorce, but at the same time, she needs my money, so she might want to prolong our marriage for as long as possible. I just didn't know."

"So, did she sign?"

He shook his head. "She balled them up on the ground and ran out. I don't know where she went, and really, I don't care."

"But you can't divorce her unless she signs them, right? So she's not out of the picture?"

"Technically, no." He looked down sadly.

Bridget patted his hand. "I'm sure the courts can do something. They'll track her down, eventually." _She'll probably do something to attract their attention before then, anyway. Let's just hope it doesn't involve the babies. _That was the worst thing that could happen.

The look on Andrew's face told her that he was thinking the same thing.

"I should tell the police, shouldn't I? About everything she did? Gemma, the embezzlement, all those things. They would have to go looking for her then." He looked angry with himself. "I don't know why I didn't just tell them in the first place. She deserves prison. I just thought putting her in jail would cause a riot or something or that it would prolong the divorce process or something." He shook his head. "But, I shouldn't care about my reputation, should I? I should care about my children, and they don't deserve a mother like her."

"It's not your reputation, though," Bridget said honestly, knowing how prideful he was, and that was his undoing, she knew. "It's hers. Especially with Arbogast to back you up, you're innocent." She smiled. "Nothing'll happen to you."

Their fingers entwined. "I'm glad you think so," he said. "But at the same time, I'm still worried about _them_. What if she tries to use them against me? I didn't realize that until she stormed out, but she very well could."

"Are they still in the hospital?" Bridget asked.

"I don't know," he replied. "I assume so, but I could be wrong. She might have decided to put them up for adoption by now." He sneered. "I just can't believe she would be so heartless."

"Don't worry. Everything'll be fine." She had to stay positive. She had the man of her dreams beside her. Together, they could conquer anything.

But, then, of course, as it always does, bad news was soon to follow.

"Excuse me, um," London appeared out of nowhere again. Had it been anyone else, Bridget probably would have been offended and thought them rude, but not London. She knew when to stay out of people's way, so whatever it was, it had to be important for her to interrupt. "I'm really, really, really _really _happy that you guys are back together, but um, Juliet just texted me and said there's an FBI guy at your house and that…" she looked down at her phone, "you need to finish whatever you're doing and hurry up and come." She nodded, and then looked back down again. "Oh, yeah, this is weird, but, anyway, for some reason, she had to mention the fact that he apparently wears lots of eye-liner. That's really random."

Bridget's heart dropped and apparently, so did Andrew's, because, when she looked back at him, his face had gone as white as a sheet.

What could Machado possibly want now? Macawi was dead. He had no reason to keep looking for her. It didn't make any sense.

She held Andrew's hand as they walked out of the apartment and into a cab, somewhere she never would have expected to be with him. It was a strange change to see Andrew sitting in dirty soundings. The limo he owned had always been as neat as a pin, but seeing the cab littered with trash and a bunch of crumbs, and smelling absolutely disgusting, it was almost laughable. Almost, as Bridget didn't feel like laughing now that Machado was back again for some unknown reason. She was too busy worrying about it.

"I wonder what he could be here about," she said after a moment. Traffic wasn't horrible, so they would probably get to the apartment in five minutes.

"I don't know," Andrew said, his face growing dark as his brow furrowed, the way it did when he was thinking about something difficult. She had missed that. "It can't be you. He doesn't need you anymore."

And there was no direct link between Machado and anything else that had happened within their family, at least as far as Bridget knew. Catherine was apprehended already, and Siobhan was off the radar as far as Machado's area of expertise (or at least his department) was concerned. So what else could have made him come all the way to New York from Wyoming?

"It'll be ok, though." Andrew looked at her and rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. "It'll be fine, whatever is it."

She nodded and rested her head on his chest. It was just wonderful to be back with him.

Almost like clockwork, it began to rain, hard, the moment the cab came to a halt in front of the apartment complex. It felt strange for Bridget when she entered the lobby, half dreading the reason for Machado being there, half enjoying the feeling of being in her old home again.

* * *

By the time the elevator door to his apartment opened, all the pride and happiness that Andrew had felt over the past day had faded into complete fear. It wasn't that he didn't trust Machado. After everything that had happened since September, everything seemed to prove that he knew what he was talking about and what he was after. In fact, Andrew now regretted calling him incompetent. Thinking about it now, he was more like the boy who cried wolf. No one believed him until it was too late.

But what else did he have to say now? There was no way he could still want Bridget for anything.

_Bridget. _Despite all that was inevitably going to happen with Siobhan, bitter divorce, jail time, and everything else, Andrew was glad to have Bridget back in his life. He gripped her hand tighter as they were greeted by Juliet with wet hair and wearing some old pink pajamas Catherine had given her two years ago. It was barely five o'clock. Why was she wearing pajamas?

"Hi Daddy! Hi _Siobhan_! How was your date?" She gave Bridget the biggest hug Andrew had ever seen her give anyone, including him.

"It was great," Bridget replied happily, keeping in tune with Juliet's game.

"He's in the living room," Juliet gestured. "He's been here for like, twenty minutes. I was trying to get him to translate _Triunfo Del Amor_ for me, but he wouldn't do it."

She scoffed and led them into the living room. Machado was sitting in an armchair, and was apparently enjoying watching the Spanish soap opera, but stood up when he saw them entering.

"What are you doing here?" Bridget asked accusingly.

He took a look at their opposing attire before responding, obviously wondering why Bridget was the one dressed like a businessperson and Andrew like a jock.

"I came to give you some bad news, Mrs. Martin." His eyes suddenly looked sad, which Andrew couldn't comprehend.

But, Bridget was still eying him suspiciously, reminding Andrew of a cat ready to pounce on a mouse or a hawk looking for prey.

"Yes, sir?" Andrew said, wanting to make up for her rudeness. It wasn't as if he didn't understand why she was being that way. He would certainly be annoyed with someone who kept showing up unannounced and asking questions about him, and in fact, he couldn't deny that he felt that way already. Machado _did_ have a habit of popping up in places when least expected, at times when no one wanted him to be there.

But, there was a sudden look on his face that made Andrew feel like this didn't have anything to do with Bridget.

"About two weeks ago," Machado began as Andrew and Bridget sat down across him on the sofa. He obviously hadn't said anything to Juliet yet, because she threw herself on the couch beside Andrew and stared at him, very interested. "We found a body in Hoboken that matched Malcolm Ward's description."

There was silence. Andrew felt like a rock had just thrown at his gut, and so did Bridget, apparently, because she suddenly gripped the life out of Andrew's hand and her face went as white as paper.

He couldn't believe it. Malcolm. All these months he had been missing, and Andrew hadn't thought of him but once. God, he felt so guilty, like a complete asshole. How could he have forgotten about him?

There was still silence, so Machado continued. "Well, we were able to track down his sister for a DNA sample because we couldn't do finger prints and facial reconstruction was inconclusive, to say the least, and the results finally came back yesterday."

They didn't need to hear the answer, but Machado responded anyway, his voice low. "Malcolm Ward is officially dead."

At that, Bridget burst into tears louder than anything Andrew had ever heard before, and buried her face in his chest. He was in shock. He didn't know what to do or how to react, but he soon realized that he had stopped breathing. Juliet had gone white and was patting Bridget on the back reassuringly.

"I thought it would be more appropriate to tell you in person, since he was a friend of yours," Machado said, looking at Bridget with the biggest look of sympathy that he could offer. "Many people think a simple phone call doesn't suffice in these kinds of situations."

"Thank you," Andrew said, nodding.

Bridget finally raised her head up, eyes puffy, and nodded as well. "Yes, thank you," she said. "W-we appreciate it." She started wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her suit almost as compulsively as Andrew had found himself doing earlier.

The rest of the day was just as sad and gloomy as one would expect. Andrew and Bridget didn't go anywhere or do anything special. How could they? Doing anything would just be disrespectful to Malcolm. Instead, they spent the day talking about nothing but him. It was like their own personal vigil, talking about all the good things they loved about him. Andrew was interested to hear Bridget tell all about her venture with him at Narcotics Anonymous back in Wyoming. and just how much he had helped her with her struggle for sobriety. Her face brightened when she talked about how patient and considerate he was back in her early days when she complained it was too hard. It seemed she had gone through a great deal of depression during that time. He didn't understand her pain completely, as he had never been addicted to anything (substance-wise) in his life, but he listened.

It was around nine o'clock that night and they were sitting up in bed, huddled together just like old times. As sad as the situation was, Andrew had to admit that he was extremely happy Bridget was back in his arms. He knew it might have been wrong to have her in his house like this, as he was still married, but what else was he to do? She wanted to stay and besides, Siobhan hadn't thought it wrong to be in Henry's bed.

"There was a point where I was suicidal and he helped me out. I was really about to do it." She shook her head. "I mean, really. I had the razor and the bathtub and the note and everything, and I was just about there and then I got a phone call from him and somehow… he snapped me out of it, and I knew that I could come to him for anything. He was really like my brother, and yes, ok," she turned to look at Andrew seriously, "since we're not hiding anything, I might as well let you know, we _did _have sex once. It was only once. It was horrible and he was so embarrassed that he didn't talk to me for at least four days after that." Her face suddenly paled as she waited for his reaction.

But, Andrew couldn't do anything but chuckle. "I'm not jealous," he said. "Why would I be? Anything you did before me is your business, not mine." Then, a stupid thought occurred to him, but had to voice it, anyway. "It _was _before you met me, right?"

Bridget rolled her eyes. "Yes, of course. I would never cheat on you."

"Good," he said. "I would never cheat on you, either." And he wouldn't. He couldn't even look at another woman. There was truly no one else in the world than the one sitting right there.

She rested her head on Andrew's chest and sniffled slightly. "Anyway, that's why I told him about being here in New York. I needed him to stay to help me so…."

"Yeah, I know," Andrew replied, stroking her hair. "You had me give him a job, which, I might add, I don't regret at all." Malcolm was probably the best employee he had ever had, the most reliable, the most honest, and he didn't go around sleeping with Andrew's wives behind his back. "He really helped me, too. I mean, without him, I'd probably still be scheming."

Wasn't that the truth? Unless the whole thing hadn't blown up in his face by now. It probably would have, actually. Now that he thought about it, if it were getting that obvious to his network programmer, someone outside the company was bound to figure it out soon. He was very lucky that it hadn't had to come to that.

"Yeah," she nodded. "He did so much for us."

"I wonder what I should tell Claudine," he said. "She really fancied him. A lot."

Alright, so "fancied" was an understatement. It would be better to say that Claudine Marsh, the secretary at Martin/Charles, had been _infatuated _with Malcolm Ward during the short time they knew each other. That was because she had made it so obvious. Once she had walked into a meeting and conveniently dropped something underneath him so that she could pick it up. Another time, she had complained that her computer was broken and all of her files were lost so that he could fix it, when in reality, it had been unplugged the whole time.

Bridget chuckled. "Yeah, I knew he'd find a good girl some day. Too bad he wasn't able to share his life with her. He would have been a good husband. I could see him as a real family man, living in a huge house with a white picket fence and ten kids. If he had the money, of course. I don't know how much college professors make, but he was living in an apartment when I knew him."

That was when Andrew got an idea. He remembered something from a while ago that he had completely forgotten about. It wouldn't be able to make up for everything that he and Bridget had done in forgetting about Malcolm, but it would still be a nice thing to do to honor his memory.

"I just remembered: the money that I gave him. He never used it, so it must still be in the account I created. I gave him the password and the account number, but I didn't write down the name of the bank provider, just in case. No one could have gotten to it."

She nodded in agreement. "That would be a good idea. Maybe we could give it to NA or maybe, the school in Wyoming where he taught, or even his sister. I'm sure he'd be happy with any of those."

"We could split it three ways," Andrew said. "It's enough money."

"How much?" she asked.

_Quite a bit_, he thought. "Three million dollars."

Bridget's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "_Three million dollars?" _she echoed incredulously.

"I said it was enough money. We could give them each one million," he said. "I think they would be happy with that."

"Yeah, I think they would, too," Bridget agreed. But, she sighed and continued to wipe her eyes. "I just feel so horrible. It's been three months and we've never even thought about him. I mean, imagine what he went through."

Exactly. There was no telling what he had gone through. Andrew didn't want to ask Machado specifics as to how Malcolm died, mainly for Bridget's sake, but also for his own. The thought made him physically ill.

"Daddy, Bridget? Are you guys ok?" Juliet appeared in the door, holding a bouquet of white roses.

"Yeah, we're fine, honey," Bridget replied. "It was something we suspected for a while, but to hear it confirmed is just horrible."

"Well, um…" she hesitated a moment and then placed the flowers in her father's hands. "I bought these for you guys on my way home from the shelter today. They're fake, 'cause I wanted them to last forever, but I think Malcolm's family might need them more, so, you can give them to them. Oh, and," she smiled sheepishly, "I also, kinda bought you some rose petals in a box. I was gonna give them to you tonight, but I guess I'll wait."

"Thank you, sweetheart," Andrew smiled, placing them on his nightstand. He would be sure to give them to Malcolm's sister when the time came.

"Uh, on the bright side," Juliet continued. "Um, Bridget, uh, I asked Macchiato or whatever his name is, you know, when he first got here if it had anything to do with you, and he said that, um, if you wanted to, you could come back out of hiding because no one's looking anymore. They don't need you, so you're free. You know, I didn't say where you were or anything. I was just like, 'so, theoretically, if she wanted to come out of hiding, she could?' and he said 'yes,' so, I mean…."

Bridget smiled. Andrew felt content. Now, the hard part was going to be the divorce from Siobhan and everything that was going to surround it. There were so many controversies and issues that were bound to take, especially after Bridget was revealed and it became obvious that the two of them were an item. How would they explain that to everyone?

They finally fell asleep around eleven o'clock, only to be awaken by a phone call at around two A.M.

Andrew reached for the phone groggily. He absolutely hated being jolted awake by anything, but especially the phone, because that meant having to carry on a conversation with whoever was on the other line.

"Hello?" he asked hoarsely, looking over at Bridget who was now propped up on her elbow and looking concerned.

"Mr. Martin, this is Jason, the night doorman. Um, there are two police officers here and they're saying it's urgent. I'm sending them up."

Police officers? A cold shiver, one stronger than he had ever felt in his life, went racing through his entire body.

The worst possibility entered his mind: Siobhan was holding his children hostage. That had to be it. She was in the hospital with a gun. There was no other explanation. That or she had drowned them!

He couldn't believe it. His heart was racing faster than it ever had in his life. He jumped out of bed in a panic, still holding the phone.

"Mr. Martin?" Jason's voice was still on the other end.

"Yes! Send them up, please!" He couldn't hide the panic or the heavy breathing, but why would he want to try?

He started pacing around frantically. "Oh my God, oh my God," he couldn't stop saying. If she had killed them, then it was all his fault. He never should have let her walk out that door. He should have called the police right then and there. Why hadn't he done it? Why?

Bridget got off the bed and tried to calm him. "Calm down. Calm down. Shh. Shh. What is it?" she asked. "What happened?"

"The police are coming. Right now. Oh God. She did something. I know it. I just know it." He couldn't calm down, no matter how tight Bridget hugged him.

Finally, he could hear the elevator door opened, and braced himself.

"Mr. Martin?" he heard a male voice say.

"Stay here," he whispered to Bridget. "They can't see you." And he didn't want to imagine their reactions if they did.

He took a deep breath and walked, clumsily, out of the bedroom, having to search for the hallway light.

The two men were standing in the foyer, flashlights in hand, as if they expected to come onto another crime scene. They were both oddly trim for police officers. One of them even looked like he jogged a few laps from time to time. From what Andrew could tell from their facial expressions, something was definitely wrong, but when wasn't it when a cop burst into your house a two o'clock in the morning? They never came for just tea.

"Yes?" But Andrew couldn't wait for any formalities. He had to know right then and there. "Did Siobhan hurt my children? Are they alright? Did you arrest her?"

What followed was probably the second biggest shock of his life.

As he dreaded the answer, the suspected jogger responded. "No, sir. Your children are fine…but your wife is dead."


	14. Arrest Unexpected

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! I hope you all enjoyed the cliffhanger from last chapter! Please continue to read and review!

Thank you,

Love,  
May

**Chapter Fourteen: Arrest Unexpected**

Saturday

Andrew couldn't believe his ears, and his heart still would not calm down after at least two minutes of staring incredulously at the two officers standing before him.

Siobhan was dead. She was dead, but how? Had she taken her own life? Had she really been so desperate to not go to prison or to lose her life of luxury that she felt like she had no other way out? He didn't know what to think.

Finally, despite his entire body being frozen from the inside out, Andrew found his voice. "Did…did she kill herself?"

But, of course, before either of the officers could get a word out, Juliet came out from her bedroom and insisted on being absolutely certain that Siobhan was dead. Her hair was a complete mess, which gave Andrew the impression that she must have had a pretty good sleep after the events of the day.

"Are you positive?" she asked, almost maniacally. "Like, _absolutely, one hundred percent _positive?"

The officers looked at her annoyed, but they responded. "Yes," said the suspected jogger. He seemed to be much more of a talker than the other, as the latter hadn't said a word yet. They hadn't even bothered to give their names. "Rigor mortis had set in hours before. Detectives estimated on the spot that she'd been dead for at least nine hours."

"So, like, you didn't need to cut her head off or anything?" Juliet badgered.

"Did she kill herself?" Andrew asked again, impatiently, while his daughter was still speaking. He was trying his best to ignore her unnecessary stupidity. He thought about Bridget back in the bedroom and wondered if she could hear anything.

The officers looked at each other uneasily, as though what they were about to say next was worse than telling a man that his wife was dead.

"Mr. Martin," the second one finally spoke up. "Were you aware that your wife was having an affair with a man named Henry Butler?"

Alright, well, now he understood why they had looked at him so cautiously before responding. Most men _would_ consider an affair worse than their wives showing up dead.

"Yes…I was," he responded slowly, confused as to why they would be bringing that up now. His wife had just died and they were bringing up her affair? How irrelevant was that?

Then, it hit him like a gong to the side of the head….

"She was found dead in Henry Butler's townhouse," said the first officer slowly. "He claimed it was self-defense, but…" he shrugged, "she had an estimated fifteen stab wounds to her stomach just from first looks. They haven't even done an autopsy yet."

"Oh my God," Andrew's response was a distant one, he knew, because he was speaking much more to himself than to either of them.

Had Henry been planning her death the whole time? Had he expected her to come back to his house after her confrontation with Andrew?

Juliet let out a loud gasp, and Andrew just hoped that she wouldn't make another stupid comment. He didn't care what she felt, as long as she kept it to herself in front of the police.

"Do you know what happened?" Andrew asked. He just noticed that they were still standing. He hadn't even offered them a seat, but he didn't care.

"He called nine-one-one around one o'clock this morning saying that she'd attacked him," replied the first. "He_ did _have scratch marks and superficial knife wounds, and the house was in disarray, but that was about it. But the time between which she died and when he actually called the police is obviously raising eyebrows, and uh…he'd been drinking during that time. His alcohol level was rather high, to say the least. So, there was quite a bit of suspicion from the start."

Of course, Juliet had to open her mouth again. "So, is he—like—getting the death penalty?"

That was enough.

"Juliet, go to your room."

She took offense to that. "But—"

"No, I said 'go to your room.'" Andrew looked at her sternly when she didn't move. "_Now_."

"Ugh. Whatever." She rolled her eyes and walked back down the hallway toward her bedroom, only to stop two doors ahead and go into Andrew's, no doubt to whisper her shock over the news to Bridget.

"Would you like to see her, sir?" asked the first officer once Juliet was out of sight, but Andrew was certain that she could still hear what was being said.

But, he didn't know if he wanted to go see Siobhan's body or not. If they were already able to identify her with Henry's own admission to who she was, they didn't need him to do it, too, did they?

He asked them. "Do you need me to identify her?"

"No, sir," said the first again. He was obviously the much more confident of the two, which made Andrew wonder why the station would have the other come along. "We used fingerprint analysis to confirm who she was. We just wanted to know if you wanted to see her."

He shook his head slowly. "Not right now."

"We understand," the first said, nodding. "Anyway, you should know, we also found two infants upstairs. I assume by your concern earlier that they're yours?"

_What? _"You mean they're out of the hospital?" Andrew asked, both baffled and shocked. "I didn't know."

"Yes. Butler said he and Siobhan took them home on Thursday, and that his name was on their birth certificates, along with a lot of other things that may or may not have any significance. He was _very _drunk when relaying all of this to us."

Still, the police looked at Andrew oddly, as though they were perplexed as to how all of that could have happened if he and Siobhan were married. After all, wouldn't he have known his wife had had children and thus kept track of their whereabouts, not to mention what was written on their birth certificates?

They didn't say anything about it, though, as they probably figured his private life, if not related to the case, was none of their business. After further explaining everything that was found at the scene, the officers left and Andrew went back to his bedroom to find Bridget and Juliet sitting on his bed. Bridget had a look of complete and utter shock on her face, while Andrew couldn't help but notice that Juliet was trying to hide an awkward smirk.

"Is he in custody?" was the first thing that came out of Bridget's mouth. She hopped up off the bed and grabbed his hand.

"It sounds like it," he responded woodenly. How else was he supposed to react? "They certainly examined him long enough for him to at least be interrogated."

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," was all that came from her mouth as she hugged him. She didn't shed any tears. Neither of them did, but stood there, silent, in disbelief, for at least an entire minute, until Juliet finally piped up and said the most ridiculous thing Andrew could think of:

"I think I'm gonna sell her stuff on Ebay. Bridget, pick out all the clothes you don't want."

"Juliet!" Andrew shouted. "That is the most inappropriate thing I have ever heard you say!"

But, she looked at him like he was crazy. "I'm still doing it."

She walked out of the room happily, almost skipping, leaving the two alone.

That was when the tears came. They stood there, holding each other tightly, before sitting back down on the bed again. What else was there to do?

"Do you think she ever loved us?" Bridget finally asked, her eyes puffy.

That was one of the many questions about Siobhan that he couldn't answer. The more he heard, the less he knew about her.

"I don't know," he finally said, kissing the top of her head. "Maybe once."

Maybe for a few months, a few years even. Certainly Bridget had to have had a better relationship with Siobhan than he had ever had. They were sisters, after all.

He leaned his head back on his pillow. He had to know, and if they were revealing all of their secrets, there was no reason why she wouldn't give him the truth.

"What happened between you and Siobhan? Why would she want you dead?"

Bridget looked at him, a haunting look. How much of that could he see in one day?

She sighed and nestled her head on his chest. "It was her son," she said softly. "I killed her son."

Andrew felt his eyes widen. He didn't just hear that. "You did _what_?"

"It was an accident." She started sniffling again. "A complete accident. Sean was his name. His father...had wanted to see him, to take him somewhere. Siobhan didn't want him to, but we decided to go behind her back." She swallowed. "It was carnival a little ways from their house, and I didn't see any harm in it, you know? We would only be gone a few hours, and she was working late that night, so she'd never know. But…" she wiped her eyes and began to stutter.

He wrapped his arm around her. "It's all right. Take a deep breath. You don't have to go on."

"No, no," she shook her head. "It's fine…we were driving home and…we were hit by a guy asleep at the wheel." She started sobbing. "I got a broken arm and some crack ribs, but Sean…Sean didn't make it…and I've blamed myself ever since. Maybe I deserved it…."

Now he knew. Siobhan's reluctance to want to talk about the boy in her jewelry box, why she had never mentioned that she had a sister. But did he understand? No. He remembered all the hatred he felt towards Catherine for the way she had influenced Juliet, but it wasn't the same thing. Juliet had never died by her mother's hand, but if she had, would he have held it against Catherine? He didn't think so. No. Not enough to want her dead, at least. Besides, he held himself greatly responsible.

"I'm so sorry," he finally said, not knowing what else to say. What could he say? It was a traumatic event that would break anyone's heart, regardless of how long ago it was, and he probably would have blamed himself, too. "I'm sorry," he repeated. But, he had to let her know that she hadn't done anything wrong in Sean's death. She had to know that Siobhan was the one that had done wrong.

"It wasn't your fault. There was something in Siobhan that made her the way she was, and it was always there. It didn't start or end with you. No one deserves to be killed, no matter what they do. She had to learn to forgive you."

"She never would have forgiven me," Bridget sobbed, trying to wipe her tears away and failing. "I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't have listened to his father. I should have said 'No.' That's how the drinking and drugs started. I mean…I just couldn't live with myself. I had to do something to get my mind off of the guilt, you know? And it just…."

She lost control and began sobbing harder into his chest, her hands gripping his sides. He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead again.

"It's all right," he whispered. It wouldn't be enough to relieve her of her guilt, but he had to let her know he was there for her. He stared at the bedspread, listening to her cries, feeling her tears seep into his nightshirt, until another thought entered his mind. "Do you think Sean would have blamed you?"

She looked up at him slowly, perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, do you think Sean would have blamed you for his death?" He looked at her intently and tried to wipe off the hair that was stuck to her face.

"I don't know," she said sadly.

"If he loved you, then he wouldn't have. He would have forgiven you." He was an innocent child. There was no way he would have held anything against her, especially if she felt so horribly about it.

Bridget looked at him, but then rested her head on his chest again. For a moment, he thought she might say something in the affirmative, because she let out what he could only have described as a relieved sigh.

"So what will we do?" she asked, adjusting the blanket around her waist. "People will talk when they find out about us, and what about me? How will I explain everything?"

His heart fell. He wanted her to say that she believed him, that she believed Sean would have forgiven her, but she hadn't.

"Bridget, don't change the subject."

"I can change it if I want to," she snapped, fiercer than she had ever been towards him. "And I want to."

Fine. If she didn't want to talk about Sean, then he would respect her. Besides, she would realize the truth some day.

"Machado said you were free, didn't he?" Andrew replied, adjusting his pillow to lay flat and bringing Bridget down with him. He looked over at the clock on the dresser. It was almost three-fifteen in the morning. "All you have to do is say Siobhan was protecting you, trying to help you stay sober. Say she got you an apartment and wanted to keep you safe, so she lied to Machado. That's all you can say."

"What about you?" she asked, her tears finally starting to dry. "What will you say if they ask you about it?"

"I'll say I met you recently and didn't know anything about what Siobhan was planning," he replied. "Obviously, there's a lot I didn't know about her and this can be just one more thing. They'll believe me."

She looked at him skeptically.

He chuckled. "It'll work. Trust me."

* * *

He woke up with the most horrible headache he had ever had in his entire life. Never had he gotten a hangover so badly. His vision came into focus slowly and he looked around the room. It was white, cold, and he appeared to be sleeping on the most uncomfortable cot he had ever been on. There wasn't even a pillow to rest his head. That was when he realized where he was and perked up. They must have left him there to sleep it all off. How much did he drink? Five, six glasses of Bourbon? God, he should have thrown up by now…. Had he?

Just as he remembered the cuts on his body, they began to hurt again. He looked down. They were stitched up. There was one long slash on his collarbone and several indiscriminate ones on either arm.

He didn't know how he felt. He wouldn't be able to describe it to anyone even if he did. He couldn't believe what had happened.

He had actually killed Siobhan.

_He was on his second glass of Bourbon by the time she had burst open the door. _

"_HENRY!" came the loudest scream he had ever heard out of a woman. It was so sudden that he almost jumped out of his seat at the kitchen table. _

_He should have expected her to come back and yell at him. It was only natural. He scammed her and practically ruined her life. It wasn't like she could just leave like that. _

"_HENRY!" she shouted so loud this time that her daughters began crying from upstairs in Dash and Becks' old crib. _

_She ran into the kitchen, face redder than he had ever seen it. It was laughable, so much so that Henry actually started laughing right then and there. _

"_Henry! How could you do that to me?" she shouted amid his snickering. "You lied! You set me up! How could you do that? I thought you loved me!"_

_He tried to control himself, although now he wasn't sure if it was the alcohol making him laugh or if he actually found the way she looked funny. _

_Finally, he steadied himself enough to at least control the movement of his face. "Do you really think we had a chance after everything you did to me? Siobhan, my life is ruined because of you."_

_He turned around and took another swig of Bourbon._

"_Henry, I told you this a thousand times. Everything I did was for us. You know it was! You know I loved you. This would have worked. We would have been together, finally. No Andrew. No Bridget. Our lives would have been perfect, But now Andrew knows everything and he-he…"_

_She couldn't finish her sentence, but Henry certainly could._

"_And now he's going back to Bridget because he loves her for who she is." Her face fell, and he burst out laughing again. "As if you didn't think that would happen! Your sister and your husband get a happy ending and you end up in the dirt! It's everything you didn't intend and everything you deserve! _

_He stood up and walked toward her defiantly. "Siobhan, their fake relationship was more real than ours ever was and you know it! Ours was based on nothing but you scamming me into doing things for your own benefit. If you really loved me, you wouldn't have done anything that you did. God, Siobhan, my wife is dead, my children hate me. I _killed_ a man for you, and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life. Do you understand how scared I am? Sooner or later, someone is going to find something else that connects me to Tyler Barrett, if my father-in-law doesn't do it first. I know it! It always happens eventually. " _

_He started pacing. "You don't deserve a bullet through my chest." But, he took it one step further, and he knew right then that he shouldn't have done it. "In fact, I don't even think you deserved Sean." _

He didn't want to remember what happened after that. He couldn't _believe _what had happened after that. He was well beyond drunk by the time he had made the phone call. Was it possible that he had just hallucinated some of it? From where he was, it didn't look like it.

He looked at the clock on the wall (right next to the security camera) just as the police came back. It was nine o'clock in the morning. That meant he had been here almost eight hours.

"Good morning Mr. Butler," Detective Towers said in his insincere way, making Henry cringe. Of course, Towers would be the one on his case. He always was. It was as if he had some sort of vendetta to set with Henry, which the latter didn't know what. They hadn't even known each other eight months ago. "We'll need to document your injuries. I hope you don't mind."

He moved out of the way so that another detective could take out a camera and make Henry take off his shirt. It took about five minutes, much longer than he had expected, because the "photographer" as he was, kept repositioning Henry's body to get shots from different angles.

Finally, when he was able to get his shirt back on, the somewhat sober interrogation began.

"Could you please explain to us what happened last night? Or yesterday afternoon, as the post-mortem shows? It's very strange that you waited nine hours to call nine-one-one _and _that you managed to get so over-the-top drunk in the process," said Towers as he and the two other detectives sat down in metal chairs that they had dragged in from the hallway.

"She attacked me," he said. It was all the explanation he could give to save himself, and it wasn't a complete lie. She _had _started it. "She started saying all these things about how she thought I loved her and blah, blah, blah. Then, she just started hitting me and I didn't know what else to do."

Towers inclined his bald head. "So you grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed her fifteen times?"

"No!" He shouted. "_She _attacked me with the knife. She…ran into the kitchen, grabbed it, and started slashing me." He pointed to the various wounds on his body. "I overpowered her and I had to stab her back! What else was I supposed to do?" It had to be obvious, didn't it? If a person is attacking you, you would have to do something to defend yourself, even if it didn't exactly happen the way Henry said it did. "She was _attacking_ me."

But Towers wasn't having it. He leaned in and stared at Henry in disbelief. "Henry, how do we know you didn't slash yourself after the fact?" Henry felt his face pale, and Towers must have noticed it, too, because he raised his eyebrows. "The DNA on the knife will come up with the answer, but I suggest you give us yours now."

"It happened the way I said it did," Henry said stiffly. "She came into my house, yelling at me because she found out her husband had filed for divorce after he found out about the affair, and was pissed at me because I knew about it already and didn't tell her."

His pulse started beating very fast. "She wanted to kill her husband and her sister. She had this whole plot drawn out about collecting his life insurance and all that, but when I found out about the divorce, I thought maybe I could set her into a trap."

"How did you find out about the divorce?" asked Towers.

"My father-in-law." Now, that wasn't a lie. He had learned about the divorce from Tim, in an odd way, but from him all the same.

"Uh hmmm…." Towers nodded, but didn't look satisfied in the least. Another detective spoke up.

"What we're getting at is that this is quite odd as a self-defense story. In most self defense cases, people don't wait nine hours to call the police to say that someone was attacking them, and continue to guzzle down Bourbon during that time. Anyone would say right off the bat that that's a sign of plotting, or at least a sign of someone who's just been caught in a pickle and doesn't know what to do with the body." Henry flinched. "Do you remember your nine-one-one call, sir?"

He shook his head. He had been so drunk that he barely even remembered making the phone call. He remembered being hauled off to the station pretty well, and then it was all black from there.

"You made it at one-thirteen in the morning, at least six hours after Siobhan Martin died. Her body was cold and stiff. Her blood was coagulated. Needless to say, waiting that long brings about suspicion of plotting, and what about the twin girls? You told us they were Mr. Martin's."

"I did?" He didn't care about that, though. Why were they even asking him? Just do a DNA test and their answer would be there. All he wanted was to have them believe him and let him go, but with Towers, he knew that was impossible. His head started to throb harder, so he pressed his fingers to his temple. "They are his, but he didn't know she was pregnant. She hid it really well." Hopefully this would work. "She called me and said she was having contractions, had them at the hospital under a false name, and we brought them back to my house. She didn't want Andrew to know because she assumed they were mine. But I had a test done."

"That doesn't make sense. How could he have not known?" asked the second detective

"That's not the issue here," Towers redirected the conversation back to where Henry didn't want it to go. "The issue is whether or not Siobhan Martin actually died in self-defense, and after everything we have seen in the past eight hours alone, it appears we have enough evidence to charge Henry Butler with murder."

He sneered at Henry cockily and said in what sounded like a much prepared speech, "_You, _Henry Butler, are under arrest for the murder of Siobhan Martin."


	15. Good Enough

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! This chapter is rather short, but I hope you still enjoy it none the less! I didn't intend for it to be this way. It's just the way it came out. Please remember to review and please let me know whether or not this story reads like a novel. That's my goal. And by the way, this story is coming to close soon. Please let me know what else you would like to see in future chapters before the story finishes. I have about three or four more chapters planned after this one.

Love,

May

**Chapter Fifteen: Good Enough**

Monday, two days later.

A sharp _ding _woke Juliet from her sleep on the couch in the living room.

_Oh God! _She remembered. _The babies!_ She was supposed to be watching them. Relief swept into her as she saw that they were still sound asleep in their little car seats. They also had a play pen nearby. It was a cheap little thing from K-Mart that Andrew had bought on Sunday, as Juliet's old one had been donated quite a few years ago, but they were still a bit too small for it. In a few months time when they were rolling over, they would be able to use it.

Obviously, as Juliet had known all along, the paternity test came back positive, and Andrew had received the results via mail on Saturday afternoon. Henry, incarcerated, had gladly given them over to him. They hadn't been that much of a hassle, but then again, this was only the third day and really the first time Juliet had had to take care of them alone, but they had been good thus far. Not too fussy, and they slept a lot more than Juliet would have expected. She had always heard horror stories of newborns waking up every three hours crying because they had used the bathroom or wanted food, but Portia and Regan were pretty much on a set schedule. That being said, they _did_ eat every two hours, baby formula, as it were, and thus, had to be changed quite often, but they didn't make a fuss about it, at least, not very much of one.

Nonetheless, Juliet had enlisted London's help that afternoon, and the elevator door opening that signaled her arrival was the cause of the ding that had awoken Juliet in the first place.

"Hi London," Juliet said as her auburn-haired friend entered the apartment, eyes full of surprise at the sight of two babies on the ground. Juliet was in for it.

"Juliet," the girl said accusingly, "Where did those babies come from?"

Juliet smiled awkwardly and stood up from the couch. She walked over to her sisters and gestured in a Vanna White-style pose.

"London, meet my new baby sisters, Portia and Regan."

The response London gave was once Juliet expected, but was nonetheless hilarious. Her mouth dropped open and she stood there in silence for at least thirty seconds.

"Baby sisters?" she finally said, still in shock. "What—how? Bridget's nowhere near ready to have her baby, is she? I thought she was only two months?"

"She is," Juliet affirmed. "These are Siobhan's. She had them about a month ago."

London's mouth was still open.

"Long story short, Henry had a test done. They weren't his, so my dad had one done, and it was positive. So, obviously, now that Siobhan's dead, Daddy gets to raise them with Bridget."

"Oh my gosh," was all London could say for the next minute, until her brain caught up with her and she remembered more important matters. "But, you said we were watching Valentine's Day, not _babysitting_."

Alright, so Juliet had to come up with a ploy to get London there. No matter how much she loved babies or anything else, London was not going to blow off a Monday of studying for her psychology test. Unless, of course, the something proposed involved Taylor Lautner or lots and lots of bunny rabbits. She would drop anything for either one or both.

"Well, I had to say something," Juliet responded to London's offended look. "And besides, I _did_ get Valentine's Day. I got it from Red Box on my way home from the shelter. We can watch it now."

She retrieved the DVD from her purse and shoved it in the player.

"How did you get money?" asked London. "I would think you're dad wouldn't give you a dime after everything that's happened."

"He gives me ten dollars a day," Juliet clarified. She didn't have a bank account other than that. "I can use it on anything I want. Those are his words, no mine."

"Can I make popcorn?" asked London excitedly, completely ignoring her last question and acting not so worried about babysitting anymore now that she had a movie to watch. That was London. Random, full of energy, and capable of losing her train of thought at any moment. Sometimes she kept it, sometimes she didn't. it just depended on the day.

"Sure, it's in the pantry, and bring some soda, too."

"Ok. Where's the soda?"

"In the refrigerator...where soda's supposed to be." Good grief.

"Ok." London skipped her merry way into the kitchen and soon Juliet heard the sound of kernels popping in the microwave.

"So where are your dad and Bridget?" London asked as she sat down on the couch, handing Juliet a Pepsi. The commercials were starting. "Are they on a date?"

_Maybe. _Juliet opened her drink and skipped forward toward the start of the movie with the remote. Once the movie started, Juliet knew that stupid song from Michael Franti would be in her head forever. "You could say that." It would be an odd choice of a date, though, but she guessed it still could be one."They went to watch Henry take a polygraph test."

London squealed. "No way! They're allowed to watch him? Won't he get nervous when he sees them and mess up?"

Juliet almost laughed. "No. He's gonna mess up anyway, but I think they're probably gonna be behind one of those one-way window things. You know, you see them all the time on _Law and Order_."

"Don't lie detector tests measure emotion, though? I mean, if he's as messed up as you said, then it's not gonna be very accurate."

Juliet rolled her eyes. How was a person as smart as London so stupid sometimes?

"He's only messed up because he did it! Otherwise, he'd be fine. They'll get him. I know it."

The microwave dinged, signaling that the popcorn was ready.

"Can you get that?" Juliet whined. "I've been watching these babies all day."

Not really, but London had already done everything else. What was the harm in her doing just a bit more?

"Sure." London hopped up off the couch in her ballerina-like fashion, no complaints at all, and retrieved the popcorn from the microwave.

"Where are the bowls?" she asked as she opened the steaming bag. "This stuff is hot."

"Left side, right next to the fridge." Juliet was getting absorbed into the movie already. She was more there for Ashton Kutcher than anything else. He had just proposed to Jessica Alba's character and was running around the town hooting and hollering about it. She wondered if Andrew would do the same thing once he proposed to Bridget and _she _had said "Yes."

London came back a few seconds later with a large red bowl full of the buttery goodness. "Oh guess what?" she asked as she sat down, putting the bowl between them. Juliet dug right in. She was starving

"What?"

"Do you remember Doug? The guy I told you about?"

"Yeah, I remember," Juliet nodded, stuffing her face full of popcorn.

"Well, guess what?" London squealed excitedly, making Juliet turn to look at her. "He asked me out! We're going to Sci Fi convention next week! We're going as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mr. Fantastic! Isn't that great?"

Juliet looked at her inquisitively, no doubt the same way Andrew did, and wiped the butter off her lips with the back of her hand, clearing her throat as she did so. "London, that's the stupidest combination of horror and Sci Fi I've ever heard of. Just because Joss Whedon can do vampires and superheroes doesn't mean you can mush them both together." She took a sip of her soda to wash everything down. "Besides they would never get together in a million years."

* * *

Bridget and Andrew had entered Riker's Island Correctional Facility walking arm-in-arm as they had done so many times before, looking like a couple. But the police didn't seem to take any notice. As Henry had never implicated either Siobhan's husband or sister in a plot to kill her, their personal lives seemed to be, to Bridget, at least, none of importance to the investigation.

Now, the two of them were sitting hand-in-hand, stiff, watching the commotion from the other side of the mirror. It was nerve-wracking for Bridget, and apparently for Andrew as well, as his hands were shaking. He looked at her, drawn. In a way, Bridget felt it was a bit ironic. If anything, she would have expected Andrew to be overly ecstatic to see his wife's lover be put on the hot seat. It was more likely that he was in shock about the whole thing, as she was. Neither of them could believe that Henry was capable of such a thing. But, then again, they really hadn't expected Siobhan to be capable of what she was, either.

"He doesn't seem like he's even tough enough to take the test," Andrew said.

Bridget nodded. Andrew was completely correct. Henry was pale against the white walls of the room in front of them, and didn't seem like he was in the position to be there at all. His whole body was shaking, his face was unshaven (more so than usual; he practically had a beard now), and his eyes were darting back and forth as the examiner placed the equipment around his waist and on his finger. The only other people present were Henry's sister, Karla Mason, a pretty brunette who looked just as frazzled as Henry did, as she probably suspected he was guilty, and his lawyer, a tall dark-haired man with a receding hairline who had his hands behind his back, trying to look as professional as possible with the shipwreck in front of him.

The examiner himself was a large elderly man who said he had performed somewhere around seven thousand polygraphs in his life, so he was rather experienced, so much in fact, that he actually looked_ bored_ with all of Henry's antics. He must have witnessed them seven thousand times before.

"Mr. Butler," the man began monotonously, "I'm going to read you a series of questions and you are to respond 'yes' or 'no.' You cannot in any way give other feedback than those two words. Do you understand?"

Henry nodded shakily. "Y-yes." He clearly was in no position to take this test, but it really didn't matter to Bridget. He was guilty and she knew it. Anything to convict him would be satisfying. He was scum and a complete moron. Why would Siobhan ever trade Andrew for a man like him?

The examiner started again. "Alright." He looked down at the piece of paper in front of him and then back at Henry. "Let's begin."

Bridget tightened her grip on Andrew's hand. She didn't know whether or not if it was the anticipation that was making her do or the unsettling look on Henry's face that made him look like he was ready a to vomit. Either way, everything about the situation was intense.

The examiner sat down across from him and started his questioning. "Is your name Henry Butler?"

Both Bridget and Andrew craned their necks to try to see the needle on the polygraph, but the examiner's body was blocking it. They didn't even need to see it, though, really. Henry's face was a polygraph in itself.

He paled even more, if that were even possible, but he responded. "Yes."

"Do you live at 125 Gramercy Avenue?"

He closed his eyes. "Yes."

"Were you home at 125 Gramercy Avenue at three-thirty in the afternoon on April 27, 2012?"

"Yes."

"Did Siobhan Martin enter your house at 125 Gramercy Avenue at three-thirty in the afternoon on April 27, 2012?"

"Yes."

"At any point did she physically attack you with a butcher knife before you attacked her?"

The word came out a bit harsh this time. "Yes."

"At any point did you physically attack her with a butcher knife before she attacked you?"

Harsher, as if he were trying to sound confident. "No."

"Did you kill Siobhan Martin in self-defense?"

"Yes."

"Were the wounds on your body inflicted by Siobhan Martin?"

"Yes."

"Were the wounds on your body _self-inflicted_?"

There was a flinch, but his eyes remained shut.

"No."

"Last question: Did you kill Tyler Barrett?"

There was another flinch and his eyes opened slowly. Bridget and Andrew had a moment to spare a glance at each other. They both knew the real answer without ever having discussed it.

Tears were now rolling down Henry's face, silently. Did this mean what Bridget thought it did? She gripped Andrew's hand tighter.

"No." The words came out in a choke.

No, Henry hadn't done what was expected. If he had had any decency, he would have told the truth. Bridget shook her head. Well, he had certainly failed the test now. Guilt was written all over his face, as it always had been.

Watching him leave the room made Bridget feel as though she were witnessing a drunkard being arrested for a DUI, which she knew all too well. Henry was so out of it that he had absolutely no control over his body. Karla had to support him as he walked out of the room, while his lawyer tried to whisper something in his ear, as if Henry were paying attention. As Henry and Karla walked into another room, the lawyer walked forward into the one that Bridget and Andrew were sitting in. They rose to talk to him and the officer who had been standing in the doorway the entire time.

"Sir," said Andrew uncertainly to the officer. "We were wondering if we could talk to Mr. Butler alone." They had already discussed it with the head of the prison, but it was best if they addressed it again, just in case the officer might have forgotten.

"Certainly," the officer replied, "but there will be cameras."

"Wait." Henry's lawyer had to pipe up. "If you're going in there, I think I'm required to listen. He's my client, and anything he says can be admissible in court. I need to be present."

"Not if it's the family of the victim doing the talking and questioning, Mr. Herman. They have the right to talk to him alone, with no interruptions from the suspect's attorney."

The look on the lawyer's face told Bridget that he already knew that, but was trying to make any excuse he could. Even he knew Henry was a hopeless case.

"I'll be outside the whole time watching, so if you need me, I'll be there," said the officer.

"Thank you, sir," said Bridget. "It won't take long."

When they entered the room, not only did the waft of a cold draft hit them, but also the terrible sound of Henry's sobbing. He had broken down completely and had his head on the table. He looked up when he saw them and sniffled. Karla was sitting beside him, patting his shoulder.

"Hello," said Bridget kindly. "Do you mind if we talk to your brother alone? I'm Bridget Kelly and this is Andrew Martin. We're Siobhan's family."

"Oh, of course," replied Karla looking nervously at her brother. She obviously knew that she couldn't compromise with their rights, but she looked afraid to leave her brother alone with anyone. "I'll just be outside." She looked at her brother again. "'Bye Henry." He kept his head on the desk and didn't respond. Not until she had shut the door, anyway.

"I thought you guys would come," he said hoarsely, looking up. "I hoped you would, actually."

The couple looked at each other.

"Henry," Bridget said, turning to him without responding to his comment. "We need to know. Did you do it? Did you kill Siobhan?"

There was a pause like no other, until Henry decided to wipe his eyes and replied, "My lawyer was actually trying to pin it on you guys. He wanted Siobhan's husband and sister to look like the culprits, but I refused. You two had nothing to do with it, and you've suffered enough by her hands." He continued to cry as they sat down in front of him, but Andrew appeared not to care.

"Henry! Tell us," he demanded in his British way, his face hard. "Did you do it?"

Bridget put her hand on Andrew's arm to calm him as best she could. She couldn't have him physically harming Henry again, not with cameras watching, but Henry stayed silent.

"Please, Henry," she begged. "Please tell us what happened."

He sighed, twitching a bit, as though he were suffering from drug withdrawal. It reminded Bridget much of her interrogation she had had with Machado that night in Nevada about a year ago. She had just been arrested for prostitution a few days before and had scarfed down every drug she could think of. She couldn't have looked much better than Henry did.

"Alright," he finally said, after his twitching and staring had subsided. "I'll tell you what happened: Siobhan came back to my house after she had been to yours. She started yelling at me, I got angry, and then I said something that I'm not sure I regret or not." He paused, as if for dramatic effect, but didn't seem to want to continue. He looked down at his hands, and Bridget was given the impression that the officers must have given him something to try to make his nerves calmer or at least cut back on his antics, because his eyes were drooping and his voice was even more monotone than the polygraph examiner's had been.

"Henry!" Andrew said harshly. "What did you say?"

Henry looked up slowly. Bridget could feel the cold air coming in rather hard again from the vents up above her. "I told her she didn't deserve Sean."

Bridget's heart stopped and Andrew gripped her hand. They looked at each other and Bridget saw her own horror reflected in Andrew's face. What Henry had said was a terrific shock, one they both knew would send Siobhan into any fit of insanity.

"I was so angry that it just flew out of my mouth. She had used me. She had ruined me so badly I just felt like she needed to hear the worst from me, and so that's what I said. So..." Silent tears continued to stream down his face. "I said it to her, and she went crazy. She started hitting me and even tried to choke me, but I overpowered her and slammed her head on the kitchen table...I was drunk. I know I was out of it, but I didn't care. I was scared. I looked at her lying on the ground for at least five minutes. I didn't move. I didn't do anything. I just watched her lying there and listened to the sound of her daughters crying upstairs." He shook his head. "But then, she started moving again, and instead of helping her up, I grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed her. I didn't want her to ever hurt anyone again, so I kept stabbing. I stabbed her until she just wasn't moving anymore, until there was no way she could still be alive, and...I sat there for hours, thinking about what to do. I drank. I pondered. I drank. I thought, and then, finally, I started trashing my house, breaking everything I could think of and cut myself to make it look like she had attacked me. I knew it was wrong, but I was panicked. I didn't want to go to jail. Not after what happened with Tyler…." He wiped his eyes again. "His death was a complete accident. I…went into his room to confront him about his affair with Siobhan.' Was that the reason? His face said something different. "We started fighting and he hit his head on the desk…."

He shook his head. "That's what happened. I don't know why I took that polygraph. I guess I knew you guys would come if I did. I knew you would want me to fail it. I knew I was _going_ to fail it, but I needed you to come see it, because I knew if you did, that you'd want to talk to me. I was going to tell the truth, but I wanted to wait to tell you two in person, because I how know how much Siobhan hurt you…and how much I hurt you…. I know it may not be what I need to do to earn your forgiveness, but it's good enough. It's all I can do."

He turned his head toward the security camera on the wall and looked straight into it. "I killed Siobhan Martin and Tyler Barrett. There. I hope you fuckers are happy now. Arrest me for murder. Arrest me for perjury. I don't care, because my life is over."

The police officer and lawyer both stormed into the room, completely shocked, just as shocked as Bridget was. Andrew gripped her hand again as she looked at him. He was stiff, his face was pale. No one could believe what they had just heard.

Later that night around ten o'clock, sitting up in bed with two sleeping babies in a crib beside them, Bridget and Andrew pondered everything. Bridget didn't know how she felt about what Henry had said, how he had only wanted to confess to them and them alone. He was still an asshole, of course, but maybe doing that did give him a shred of dignity.

But, Andrew wasn't so easily convinced.

"I don't think it meant anything," he said. "He just wanted attention, if anything. He'd spent his whole life mooching off of others, and now he finally wanted to do something on his own that made him look like he had decency. That's all it was. We shouldn't think too hard about it."

Maybe not. "I guess," Bridget replied, wrapping her arms around him. "I still don't know if I forgive him or not, though."

"I don't," said Andrew firmly. "Maybe I will someday, but not right now."

"What about what he said about Tyler?' she asked, looking down at the bedspread. The thought had been in her head all day. Why had he gone to see him that day? Did it have something to do with the Ponzi scheme?

"I know," Andrew said, shaking his head. It was obvious he had been asking himself the same question. "I know why he went to see him. It wasn't because of any affair of Siobhan's." Andrew looked at her, and his eyes looked seriously dark. "Tyler found out about the Ponzi scheme." Yes, Bridget knew that already. But, why would Henry get involved? Then, it hit her: Siobhan wanted him to get something from Tyler that would bring Andrew down. That was the only reason plausible. "Do you remember the flashdrive that kept asking you about?"

_Yes. _She nodded, wanting to hear Andrew's take.

"Tyler had it," Andrew said sadly, "and somehow, Tim Arbogast got it. He told me that Henry had given it to him, and that made me put two and two together. I knew Henry had murdered Tyler, or at least, had some involvement with his death. Siobhan must have given it to Tyler in Paris, and then told Henry to retrieve it again."

"So," now she was understanding. She finished the event for him. "They got in a fight, and Tyler died."

"Exactly," Andrew nodded. He looked down at his hands, looking guilty about something, and Bridget knew just what it was.

"He was trying to protect us," she said. "He said all that stuff about the affair in front of the camera so the police wouldn't know his real reason for being in Tyler's hotel room."

"Yeah."

She couldn't believe it. It was shocking. Henry Butler had actually done something to save them. Was he worthy of forgiveness now?

Andrew was silent.

"But, do you know what this means?" Bridget asked, looking up at him after a few moments. Neither of them had had anything to say about Henry. They both wanted to avoid the subject.

"What?" he asked.

"It means we're free. You and me. We can be together no questions asked. I mean, it'll be weird at first, for your family, I know, but legally, everything can happen. We can go off somewhere with the babies and Juliet, and everything can be normal."

Andrew nodded, smiling. "I felt more normal with you than I ever did with anyone else, you know."

"Me too." She gazed into his eyes and soon they were kissing passionately. A fire suddenly awoke in Bridget that she hadn't felt in weeks, and it made her ready for action. She took the initiative and pulled Andrew's shirt over his head, when, suddenly, he broke the kiss.

"What?" she asked worriedly. Why was he turning her down? "What's wrong?"

"Before we do anything," he began as he stepped up off the bed, "I need to give something back to you."

She had no idea what he was talking about. What could she had left behind in the house that was so important for Andrew to want to postpone sex, even for a moment? She wondered what it could be, until she saw him walking toward Siobhan's jewelry box.

"I wasn't sure why I wanted to keep this," he said, his bare back still turned. "I guess I hoped you'd come back."

He turned around, and Bridget could see what he was holding between his fingers: it was the diamond engagement ring that he had given her back in January. She smiled, suddenly very excited about what she knew was going to take place.

"Bridget Kelly," Andrew said, taking her hand and leaning against the bed, "will you marry me…for real, this time?"

"Yes!" she shouted without any hesitation. "I will! And I'll be yours forever and always."

She had never felt happier in her entire life. She finally would have a real wedding with a real man and a real family that loved her, if all went as planned, that is. With her life, things kept happening all the time. But, maybe now she would get some stability.

"Good." He chuckled as he slipped the ring on her finger. "I was hoping you would say something like that." He gave her another passionate kiss, and then retook his possession of his side of the bed. "Now, where were we?"

She giggled and they finished the night by pulling off each other's clothes and falling into a bliss that only they could ever feel. Their lives may not have been perfect, but all was good enough for them.


	16. The Secret Life of the American Chauffeu

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Here's Chapter 16! Don't forget to leave a review with suggestions for future chapters! Please review!

Thanks,

Love,

May

**Chapter Sixteen: The Secret Life of the American Chauffeur**

Friday.

Bridget wasn't sure if anything would ever be completely normal in the Martin household again. Or least, this would have to be the new normal, until an even newer normal came around. She awoke on a comfortable morning to an empty bed and a quiet apartment. It was a change, because for the last few days, she and Andrew had awoke to the screaming of their children. Portia and Regan had turned out to be rather bad sleepers, and that was an understatement. It seemed that the more they settled into their cribs and their new home, the more they felt like they could take a _control _of the house and be given as much attention as possible. They were much like their mother in that sense.

Saying good-bye to their mother hadn't been much of a pick-nick, either. At least not for Andrew and Bridget. They had decided to bury her next to Sean back in Nevada. It was the most respect she deserved after everything she had done, but Andrew and Bridget cried nonetheless as they watched her casket be loaded onto the airplane. In fact, they had probably shed just as many tears, if not more, than they had the night they had gotten back together. Of course, Siobhan had been mean, she might have even been evil, but she was still their family, and despite everything, they still loved her, even if she may not have loved them. They couldn't grasp why a woman would want to hurt her sister and husband so badly, just as much as Juliet was unable to grasp why they could still possibly love a woman like that. But, Bridget knew that the concept didn't have to be graspable. Love just was, and that was that.

This morning, everything was quiet, and Bridget had to admit that she liked it. She stretched her arms and climbed out of the bed slowly, before pausing to look around the room. Half of her couldn't believe that after everything she had done, she was actually back on Park Avenue, in _her _bed, with a man _she _loved, and everything, save for a few antiques here and there, Siobhan's obnoxious portrait, and a new living room, was exactly the way she remembered it. Oh, and the morning nausea. She had certainly never had that living here before. The feeling suddenly came over her and she ran to the bathroom. Luckily, though, it turned out to be only a bunch of dry heaving.

She cleaned herself up and went out into the living quarters of the apartment. Andrew was in his office sitting at the computer, his back to her, one baby girl in his arms, the other in her car seat beside him.

"Good morning," said Bridget, leaning over his chair to give him a surprise kiss on the cheek, but his lips caught hers just in time.

"I saw your reflection in the monitor," he remarked as they pulled apart. She caught a glimpse of the baby in his arms. The marking on her cheek revealed her to be Portia, the one they were watching closely due to her health. They had taken her to the doctor on Wednesday after noticing that her legs were oddly limp, and they were informed that she might have cerebral palsy, but it couldn't be properly diagnosed for a few months until her motor skills began to develop more. She was actually the one who made most of the commotion in the mornings. Bridget wondered if perhaps her lack of movement was the problem.

"How did you get them to be so calm this morning?" She asked him.

"Easy," he said, looking down at Portia, whose eyes were open. "I woke up before they could make any noise." He chuckled. "It wasn't so hard. I noticed they wake up around seven every morning, so I thought, 'Why not beat them to it?' I had their formula ready for them as soon as their eyes opened, and they've just been changed, so they should be good for a while."

"So you think they're taking it all right?" Bridget had been worried about the girls taking formula instead of breast milk, but what else could they eat? They had no mother to give them anything, although Bridget doubted if Siobhan would have ever breastfed them the way she had Sean. But, needless to say, the formula was all they had, and Bridget was concerned it wasn't giving them the proper nutrients, and they didn't seem to like the taste of it very much, judging by their tiny facial expressions and the way they spit it out at least three times before actually swallowing it every time she and Andrew tried to feed them.

"They took it fine this morning," he responded. "I wouldn't worry about it too much. This isn't the first time I've had to feed a baby a substitute because there wasn't a mother around to feed her."

He didn't seem like he wanted to elaborate, and Bridget wasn't sure if she wanted to hear that story, but her curiosity pushed the words out of her mouth before she could stop it.

"What do you mean?"

He gave Portia a kiss on the head and placed her back in her car seat next to her sister. "When Juliet was a baby, Catherine never fed her. She tried it once, and said it hurt too much, so she made _me _feed her formula until she started teething." He rolled his eyes. "But, that wasn't the worst of it. I came home to so many issues. I couldn't describe them all to you. Once, Catherine was apparently giving her a bath in the sink when she forgot what she was doing and left her there. I came home to a screaming infant and Catherine passed out on the couch."

Now, there was a shock. Bridget knew Catherine wasn't a good mother in the least, but never imagined she would do something like that, not to Juliet.

"Oh my God," was all Bridget could say. "How could she _do_ that?"

"Yeah, I know. I'm still really pissed about it, but it's not something I've even told Juliet about. It was the first time I kicked Catherine out of the house. I could have killed her. I should have divorced her right then and there." He shook his head and scoffed. "God, why was I such an idiot? I was such a horrible father."

"You weren't an idiot, Andrew." Bridget patted his back. "And you were _not _a horrible father. You were young and scared and didn't want to take Juliet away from her mother." She knew she probably would have done the same thing, or probably been the one to leave the baby in the sink in the first place. She had been so high on drugs during her twenties that she barely even remembered them.

"I guess," he replied. "I wanted her to love her mother, I really did, so I tried to keep most of what she did secret. I didn't want Juliet to think badly of her, but I should have handled everything better. That's why everything happened the way it did. I'm such an idiot."

"Don't say that," Bridget said, trying to think of something to change his mind about himself. He wasn't an idiot. He just didn't know how to handle family matters. Neither did she, for that matter. It was something they would have to learn together.

But, Andrew ignored her comment, signaling his still present guilt, and changed the subject, turning to his computer. "I've been looking up donations for NA, and it turns out that they cap anything they receive at three thousand dollars."

Bridget nodded and caught a glance of what was on the screen. It was the NA website. So, that meant that they had more of Malcolm's money that they could give to his family and the school, although the more Bridget thought about it, the more she was rethinking giving the money to Malcolm's sister. If it took the police so long to find her, how much longer had it been since Malcolm had talked to her? Were they even close? He had certainly never mentioned his family, not even where he was from, other than that he had received his computer science degree from the University of South Carolina. Whether or not that said anything about where his sister might be, Bridget didn't know.

Andrew agreed with her, because he voiced exactly what she was thinking. "If we were to give more money to his sister, do you think she would exploit it?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I don't know if they were even talking."

"Me neither." Bridget had almost forgotten that Andrew and Malcolm had ever known each other.

But, then another thought about money entered her mind. Looking at the two infants in front of her and thinking of the baby inside of her: what were _they_ going to do about money? She and Andrew, that was? With Andrew out of work and no prospects coming? They would need more money soon, even if they moved into a cheaper place. Bridget was still waiting on her call for the job at Hallmark, and now looked like the perfect time to get it. Still, minimum wage wouldn't be enough.

A solution, even if only temporary, had suddenly occurred to her. But, she didn't know if it would be disrespectful to Malcolm to consider it. Still, a corner of her brain told her that he wouldn't mind.

"Andrew," she said after a moment, "Do you think it would be right at all for us to keep some of the money?"

He turned off the computer and looked at her, his face pale. "I don't know. Honestly, I was thinking about it, but…I don't know. Maybe…."

"We _do _need money, Andrew," she said, taking a seat, not beside him, but on his lap. "Maybe, you know, if we kept some of it for the children, it would help. But, at the same time, I don't want to be disrespectful to him."

He nodded, threading his fingers with hers. "I understand. I feel the same way…."

There was silence.

"But something else occurred to me," Andrew finally said. "Did they ever find the other men who did it? It wasn't just Macawi who was involved. He had accomplices, didn't he?"

"Well, we know he had at least one," said Bridget, "and he's obviously dead now." She was referring to Daniel Eknath, one of Macawi's "lieutenants," as Machado had called him. He had been found dead in a ditch somewhere in the woods and had an entire log book with everything Malcolm had done in the past seven months, along with his driver's license and NA pin. It was horrifying to know that someone had been watching him and had never even been detected. There were so many unanswered questions as to how he found out where Malcolm was and how he got to killing him. How did he even know what hotel room Malcolm was staying in?

That was when she remembered the surveillance footage. "The surveillance footage!" she shouted suddenly, and ran over to the telephone in the living room.

"What about it?" asked Andrew, following her. "Which one are you even talking about?"

"The footage of Malcolm's hotel room," she said as she waited for Solomon to pick up. "Solomon and I paused it right as you knocked on the door. We didn't see who else came afterward. If Solomon still has it, then—"

The phone picked up. "Hello. This is Solomon Vessida. How may I be of service?"

Now, Solomon was an odd character if Bridget had ever known one. He was always wearing the same thing: a black suit and tie, and was a detective in addition to being Siobhan's chauffeur. He acted as if Siobhan were his only employee, but Bridget doubted that was really the case. He probably had secret missions all over the country.

"Solomon. This is Bridget. Do you still have the surveillance footage of Malcolm's hotel room?"

There was a pause. At first, Bridget was afraid it was a pause of shame and reluctance to admit that Solomon had done away with the footage. Her heart sank. Without it, they might never know who else was involved. But, instead, it turned out to be an offended pause, one of complete shock that anyone would accuse Solomon of throwing anything that important away.

"Of course I still have it. What makes you think I would throw it away?"

"Oh, I don't know." She didn't have time to dilly-dally, though. "Anyway, Andrew and I need to come over and see it."

"You and Andrew, huh?" asked Solomon. She could practically hear the smile in his voice. "I knew it."

"What do you mean you 'knew it'?" She asked, a bit bewildered. Solomon had been very pessimistic when it came to revealing Bridget's whole identity. He didn't think Andrew would keep her around at all. "You were completely skeptical that he would ever take me back after I told him the truth."

"Of course I was," he said matter-of-factly. "You can't act optimistic about these things just in case they go wrong, but I had a feeling." Bridget rolled her eyes. "But, yeah, I'll look through them for you and call back in about five minutes. All I have to do is fast forward them."

And in three minutes, he called back to tell Bridget he was coming over. Soon after, Andrew had reappeared around the corner with a tray of toast, eggs, and a cup of tea and sat it on the coffee table. Aw, he had made her breakfast. She felt so special, and it looked quite delicious for a man who rarely ever cooked. But, wait, tea? She stared at it. Tea had caffeine and caffeine wasn't good for babies. She couldn't drink that.

"It's decaf," he said, smiling at her questioning look in the direction of the tea. "I bought it just for you. What did he say?"

Bridget sat down on the couch and took a sip. Deliciously herbal, just the way she liked it. Andrew followed her. "He said he found something. He's on his way over now."

It took him thirty minutes for Solomon to make it from his home to Park Avenue. When he got there, he went straight to the television, as if he knew the place by heart, and dropped the DVD into the player.

"Look closely at it," he said, perching himself right in front of the television set after having fast forwarded the entire tape up until they saw Andrew appear on the screen. Andrew and Bridget stood beside him, although they had to stand at angles in order to see the entire screen. The footage was grainy, more so than Bridget remembered. "Now, Andrew," Solomon said, gesturing as though he were a presenter in one of Andrew's board meetings, "when Bridget and I first looked at the tape, we were absolute idiots because we didn't actually watch the entire thing. I had to smack myself after realizing it, because, really, it would have saved a lot of fear, especially on Bridget's part."

Andrew chuckled. "It's alright. It wouldn't have changed the next night's outcome, anyway."

But Bridget felt horrible. Why hadn't she thought of fast-forwarding the tape right at that very moment when they first saw it? It didn't make sense. Now, _she _was an idiot. Thank goodness Andrew forgave her.

Solomon continued. "But, if we had, we would have seen that you had nothing to do with Malcolm's disappearance because," he moved the tape forward, "we would have seen Malcolm close the door behind you when you left. But, fast forward three hours later…." It took forever, watching nothing but a plain white door, to finally reach the spot he was talking about, but when it did, it was startling. "And we get _that_!"

Bridget's heart started pounding as she saw three Native American men knocking on the door to Malcolm's hotel room. She knew instantly who they were. In fact, she had seen all of them during her days at the strip club at least once, and she could have sworn the one on the far right had been a client of hers at one time, not that she would voice that to Andrew. She looked at him, and saw that he looked just as shocked as she felt. To actually see the men who had ended Malcolm's life was unbelievable.

"Now, the only problem is how we're going to get these tapes to Wyoming without Machado or anybody else figuring out that I stole them."

* * *

Mrs. Walters always had a horrible habit of screeching the chalk whenever she did a math problem. Tessa thought that was partially why she was so bad at math, besides the brain damage. She could never concentrate with the screeching, and it gave her a horrible headache. Today they were doing parabolas, which Tessa liked drawing on her grid paper much better than she did actually solving them. She supposed she would understand it better if the numbers didn't keep getting mixed up inside her head.

Was it X squared or X cubed? She couldn't remember, even a split second after they had finished a problem. She glanced up at the board. X squared. Mrs. Walters was halfway through her sixth example, which meant she was about to either hand out their homework assignment or tell them which pages and numbers in the textbook to do. Great, more work that Tessa could fail. She wished she knew someone who could just cure her of her disability. Her tutor certainly wasn't helping.

She stole a glance at Ellie Wheaton who was sitting three students diagonal from Tessa in the very front of the class. She had complained to Mrs. Walters that her eye was bothering her and thus prohibited her from seeing the board from her position in the back of the room, but now she was doodling in her notebook. Huh. Tessa supposed that was a good thing. Now, she couldn't blame anyone for copying down the wrong problems on their next project if she wasn't even paying attention herself, and would get in trouble all by herself. Her eye was obviously getting better if she wasn't even squinting anymore. Her stitches were still on, but they were much less noticeable than they were a week or so ago.

That made Tessa think of Juliet and what she must have been going through. She obviously wasn't in school, so what was she up to? Community service, probably….

Oh, what the heck. Why not ask? She couldn't concentrate on what was being taught, anyway. In fact, it was giving her a bit of a headache. Not one bad enough to go to the nurse, but one nonetheless. She looked around cautiously and then pulled out her cell phone from her purse, being sure to keep it tucked underneath her desk so that Mrs. Walters couldn't see.

_Hi Juliet, _the text began, _How r u? What r u doing now that ur not in school?_

She wasn't sure if Juliet would write back or not. They weren't exactly friends, were they? But, they weren't enemies, either.

It wasn't until the bell rang that Tessa checked her phone again. There was an answer.

_Im ok. Community service at a rabbit shelter. Fun stuff :/ Hows Ellie?_

She started typing away as walked down the hallway toward her locker to get her books for her history, chemistry, music, and French, her classes for the second half of the day.

_Shes gr8. Still pretending to be hurt…and doodling during class._ Tessa began rummaging inside her purse for her combination, when, before she could even uncrumple the paper, her phone vibrated again, signaling a new text.

_Does she still call u Dory? _

Ha ha. Very funny. She texted back, _We haven't spoken since the incident, _and put in her combination, before yanking out all of her books. Big mistake. An avalanche of books fell on her. God, she hated having so many classes after lunch. Her back was practically broken. She shoved the items she needed into her backpack and left the rest behind. There was another vibration of her phone.

_Oh ok. I gotta go. Breaks almost over._ So was hers. The lunch bell would ring in about two minutes and everyone who wasn't in the cafeteria would get locked out. She had to hurry, even if she wasn't all that hungry.

_Ok. Bye, _she typed hastily. She had just reached the door to the cafeteria when she thought of something else: she needed to thank Juliet for what she had done for her. Sure, it had expelled her from school and God knew what else, but at least she had actually come to her defense. She had tried to help when everyone else just stood there and watched like a bunch of stoned zombies. So, she sent one more text before taking a seat alone at one of the only unoccupied booths nearest the window in the crowded, noisy place. No one really sat with her anymore, but she couldn't say she minded it. She didn't need them to be happy.

_Do u want to hang sometime? _They could hang, right? That is, if Juliet's father would allow it, of course. But, the point was, they had enough thrown down enough walls for Tessa to actually call Juliet, if not a friend, then an acquaintance, so seeing her wouldn't be completely random or awkward for Juliet, would it? Tessa pondered this while staring at one of the hot senior guys at the table across from her. His name was Toby, she thought. Maybe it was Terence. Anyway, he provided her with something to look at during lunch when she was in a pickle.

Soon enough, Juliet texted back. _Sure. _That was all, so what did it mean? Was she being sarcastic?


	17. Paying for the Dentist

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hi everybody! Thank you to all of you who have reviewed! I greatly appreciate it and I take all of them to heart. I'm trying my best to make this story the best I can make it and your encouragement and advice makes all the difference. Please keep the reviews coming! Although, I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, I hope you guys like it all the same.

Love From,

May

**Chapter Seventeen: Paying for the Dentist**

Saturday

"Solomon says he's going to mail the surveillance footage to Wyoming anonymously," Bridget said as she entered Andrew's office.

Andrew's heart stopped. "What about the part where I entered Malcolm's room? Remember, I told Machado that I hadn't seen him in days."

"Don't worry," she smiled, sitting on his lap. "He says he's taking care of it, so I assume he has something that can erase it. I know you can do all kinds of things with footage nowadays. What are you working on?" She gestured to his computer.

Well, he was doing the same thing he always did when not preoccupied with the twins: looking for work, but there was nothing thus far, and of course, trying to start his own business would never work again, not in this economy, and not in the same way it had with Olivia. He had been searching for jobs all over the country. He had sent his résumé out, but there just wasn't any luck anywhere.

"I'm still looking for work," he responded, "but no one's hiring in the hedge fund world."

"Have you tried something besides hedge funds?" Bridget asked, resting her head against his. She was silent for a moment, and then suggested, "What about accounting? You'd be good at that, and you would have the option of being self-employed, right? I mean, I know a lot of rich hire their own people to handle their money. You could make some big bucks."

"Maybe," he said doubtfully. But, somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought it was a pretty wise idea. If he were an accountant, he wouldn't have to worry about any schemes as long as he did the math right….Well, maybe not. He could think of a few scandals right off the bat where accountants were involved. He would just have to be honest, but with Bridget, he didn't think it would be that much of a problem.

"Well, go on," Bridget insisted. "Type it in."

He shrugged and did so, trying to make his wording as specific as possible. It was a hard thing to do. The first thing he typed in was "accounting jobs in New York." He found the first link to be much less than promising, as it required a CPA license.

"How long would it take for you to get one of those?" Bridget asked.

"No idea." Andrew shook his head. "Let's find out."

He was thankful for the internet. Something so fast and easy should have been invented sooner. He really could have used it back in secondary school when his English teacher had assigned a ten page research paper.

He typed in "CPA license," and soon found that they were required in all states, except, and this made Andrew feel a tad bit better, Ohio, Kansas, Arizona, and North Carolina.

"Why don't you try North Carolina?" Bridget asked. "I've never been—"

Just then, one of the babies awoke, crying.

"I'll get her," Bridget said, putting pressure on Andrew's legs as she hopped off his lap. "Keep looking and let me know what you find."

As Bridget was preoccupied with the baby, who turned out to be Portia, Andrew kept looking for something. In all, he was on the internet for three hours looking for accounting openings, applying to as many as he was qualified for. He didn't think he had any luck with any of them, but he figured he would try his best.

"You know, what about this place?" Bridget asked as she walked back over to the computer, a fussy Portia over her shoulder. "We can easily get., what, eight million dollars from selling it? And what about the house in the Hamptons? How is that coming? Weren't you trying to sell it, too?"

"I'm trying," Andrew said, staring at the screen. The more he thought about the whole job thing, the sadder he got. He knew there was no reason for him to be sad now that he had a woman in his life who actually loved him, and he supposed he would be feeling a lot worse if she weren't there to help him, but still. It was a sadness he couldn't describe.

Never in his life had Andrew lost a job. He had always quit because he was moving on to bigger, better things. His first job had been as a waiter back in a local bar in Wales. He had left that job because he gone off to America. His second job he had acquired right out of university. He had only applied to one, but he had gotten it right off the bat. That job had been in a local firm in New York, where he had met a young up and coming English woman named Olivia Charles. She had been very outgoing and had a dream of starting her own business. In a few years time, she had, and Andrew was her right hand man. Once he had reached that spot on top of the world, Andrew felt so confident that he would never have to get down. But, now, well, now, he had the feeling that he would never get up again. He knew he would never have that level of success that he had had with Olivia, but would he ever get anything at all?

"How about I make you some tea?" asked Bridget, jerking him from his thoughts. Her tone was sympathetic, as though she were telling him that it would be all right. But, he tried to ignore it. He didn't want her to have sympathy for him. He was supposed to be strong and brave like all men, not giving in to anyone's sympathy.

"Sure." He responded to her question trying to sound a little cheerful. "I would like that."

Once Portia had calmed down (as it turned out, she wanted to be changed), Bridget prepared a pot of tea for her and Andrew, and a bagel for herself. It was the only thing she ate in the mornings now that she was pregnant. Andrew assumed it either had something to do with digestion or a craving, but he had never bothered to ask.

"I really think we need to talk about your job options," she said as she sat the tray down on the coffee table in the living room, just like she always did back when she was Siobhan. "I mean, we've been so busy with the babies this week that we really haven't discussed anything."

He nodded as she took a seat next to her. They _did _need to talk about it, especially if it meant moving to another state. Looking for a job was one thing, but what would happen when he got it was another.

"I agree," he said. He had plenty of issues with moving and leaving his life in New York behind. The younger children, Portia, Regan, and the baby on the way could easily adjust to anywhere, as they wouldn't know they were moving anyway, but what about Juliet? She still needed to find a new school for the fall semester, and given the fact that she had several records, it wouldn't be an easy task to find one.

"I don't mind moving, but I'm more concerned for Juliet," said Bridget. "She still has, what, fifteen more hours of community service left?"

"Twelve, I think," said Andrew, although he wasn't entirely sure. "I doubt I'm going to find a job before she finishes, though. Our biggest issue is her schooling for the fall. Wherever we go, we have to find a place that'll take her, and I somehow doubt any little town in Nebraska would."

Bridget nodded and took a sip of her tea. "We'll find somewhere, though. We have to. But, what about this place? Have you thought of getting rid of some of the things? Like the sculptures, and maybe some of the paintings? We don't need all of them. We could sell them at auctions, couldn't we?"

"Yeah," said Andrew. "We could. I've never liked any of these antiques anyway." Wasn't that the truth? He _hated _over half of what was in this apartment, and he knew some petty collector would pay big bucks to have all of it. He sipped his tea, staring at Bridget over the rim of his cup.

She took a bite of her cream cheese slathered bagel and smiled, wiping her mouth off with a napkin. "Do you remember?" She swallowed. "Do you remember when we used to do this on Saturdays, just you and me?"

He nodded, thinking back. "Of course I remember." He took her hand. "I hope we can still do it just as often, even with three children."

This was the first day in a week where they actually had a moment of peace together. The babies were finally calm and relaxed and Juliet was gone. But, now Andrew was sitting with Bridget, not with an imitation of Siobhan. They could be themselves now, not having to cover anything up.

Bridget rested her head on Andrew's shoulder. "You know, I never got to think you properly for taking that bullet for me."

Andrew was bewildered. "What do you mean? You've done plenty for me." She had been there every step of the way for him. What more could he ask for?

"I mean," she began, looking at him straight in the eye, "did I ever say 'thank you'? Or tell you how much it meant to me? When you did that, I knew you were the man for me, and I never wanted to leave you. I knew I would do anything for you, and I knew _you_ would do anything for _me_. I should have known, that day I told you who I really was. I knew you did love me for me. You had to, because I knew that Siobhan would never do anything to deserve man taking a bullet for her."

"Well," he said, "I think that was the most detailed 'thank you,' I've ever received from anyone." He smiled. "I love you, Bridget Kelly, and just you being right beside me is enough."

"I love you, too, Andrew." She returned his smiled and tears flooded her eyes, and soon they were kissing passionately, oblivious to the world around them.

* * *

Erin tried her hardest not to fall asleep watching the stupid nature documentary on whales. It was the only thing, besides the other documentary on penguins, that her orthodontist showed in the waiting room. Her eyes were drooping practically off her face, when suddenly a voice called her name.

"Erin Brenagh, Dr. Oxendine will see you now," the nurse, a fat Native American woman with ironically bad teeth, called out from the doorway to the back room.

Erin nodded, yawned, and pushed herself off the couch. Like practically everything else in the town of Rock Springs, Erin's orthodontist office was run by Native Americans. It was a surprise to her, as, before coming to Wyoming, she had always assumed all Native Americans to be poor and uneducated, or at least, not educated enough to run something so skilled as a dentist office. It was a very racist stereotype, she knew, but she couldn't help believing it for the longest time. But, this dentist was quite good. Dr. Oxendine was in his late fifties or early sixties, and had graduated with top honors from the University of Washington School of Dentistry, judging from the diplomas that hung in the waiting room, although he hadn't been practicing all that long. He appeared to be doing a pretty good job with Erin's teeth, though. The gap in the middle of her mouth was already gone, and she had much more room on the bottom of her mouth now than she had before getting braces.

Today she was there to tighten them and change the wiring. Her appointment had originally been scheduled for Tuesday, but had been postponed until Saturday because Dr. Oxendine had been out of town. But, as Erin walked into the back room, she noticed that he was still not available. The Dr. Oxendine that the nurse had been referring to was his son, Miguel, a twenty-something medical student following in his father's footsteps. Erin grunted upon seeing him. It didn't matter how experienced he was. She still didn't trust him. He was too shaky and second-guessed everything he did. Ever since March, it seemed like he was going through some sort of nervous breakdown. Once, while his father was changing Erin's braces, he had actually ran to the bathroom and vomited. How on Earth could he possibly be an orthodontist if he were that shaky around people's mouths? But, still, it was guys like him who made Erin understand why dentists had the highest suicide rate of any profession.

"Hello, Erin," he said, just trying to sound happy as she walked in the room. "How are you? Take a seat."

"Where's your father?" she asked, not complying with his request.

"He's at another Dental Conference," Miguel replied, turning his back to Erin and taking something out of the drawer. It was a pair of pliers the doctor always used to take out Erin's wires. It could pinch someone's finger off it someone wanted it to.

"But, why are you here? Couldn't he have found someone else?" She didn't realize how rude and harsh that sounded until the words were already out of her mouth. "Sorry," she tried to correct herself, "it's just—"

"I'm a bit jumpy, I know." He said, running his fingers through his hair. Ew. Now Erin was going to have some guy's dirty hair all in her mouth. He obviously didn't know much about the hygiene procedures of a dentist. Or else, he just didn't care. "But come on. I can do this. I've done it plenty of times."

Erin grunted again and finally took a seat in the chair. What else could she do if there was no other orthodontist around for miles? And Dr. Oxendine, at least, obviously approved of his son if he left him to do his job, right? Ugh. She hoped so.

Miguel turned the small overhead light on and began by looking at Erin's teeth with that tiny two-way round mirror dentists always used. That caught her off guard.

"Do you even know what you're doing?" she snapped, pushing his gloved finger out of her mouth. "You're supposed to be tightening my braces, not checking my teeth. Don't confuse your professions."

"Why are you being so rude?" he asked, looking offended. "I'm trying to make sure your teeth are healthy, and from the looks of it, they're not. You've got a cavity on your first molar on the left. You need to brush better, Raggidy Ann."

Raggidy Ann? She didn't realize how much that would hurt until someone actually called her that. She very much preferred being Ginny Weasley.

"Sorry," she said. "Keep going."

"I'm done," he said shortly. He took the wire clippers off the tray briskly and yanked on Erin's wire harder than his father ever had. She knew not to be rude to him ever again.

But, before he could even get the wire out, he stopped and put his head in his hands. _Great. _

"What's wrong," Erin asked, her head throbbing. She wanted to get out of here and take some Advil. Why was he acting so foolishly?

"Sorry," Miguel said, rubbing his temple. How was _his _head hurting? "It's just…teeth give me the willies sometimes."

For the third time, Erin grunted. Next time Miguel was there to do her teeth, she would walk right out.


	18. Recant

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Yay! I'm so happy. I reached 100,000 words! It was my goal. I'm so excited. Thank you so much for all of your encouragement and reviews. I appreciate every last one of them. Please continue to help me out. I'm not completely happy with this one, so if you guys could give me some feedback, I would appreciate it. Here's Chapter Eighteen!

Love from,

May

**Chapter Eighteen: Recant  
**

Saturday

She was an ugly blonde with big hands and a gap between her teeth. He had had enough of blondes in his life, but to have this one here was simply nonsensical. She was a psychiatrist, meaning she was just there to pick at his brain and ask him stupid questions. She thought he was crazy, maybe even evil. He was sure of it. They all did, even his lawyer.

He was sitting in his freezing cell, staring at her, giving her a blank expression, because that was all she was worth.

"Henry, I'm trying to help you," she said, the gap between her teeth seemingly becoming even wider as she spoke. "You're frustrated, I know. You're angry. You need someone to talk to. Your sister thinks this might help."

"Help what?" he scoffed at her. "I don't need any help with anything. I just want to be alone."

"That's what they all say, Henry," she said. "But being alone only makes things worse. You're stuck with the memories of what you did , and by being alone, all you can do is relive them over and over again. You need someone to help you get to the bottom of your anger. It's the only way you'll get better."

_Better? _What did she mean by that? Did she mean his mental sanity? Or was she referring to the fact that he was a prisoner whom she was trying to help redeem? Either way, he didn't agree with it. There was no "getting better" for him. After everything that had happened with his life, he knew he would be stuck in a cloud of gloom and despair forever, and deep down, no matter how much he wanted to blame Siobhan, he knew it was his own fault. He never should have gotten involved in any of this.

And now he was trapped, trapped behind bars for the rest of his life, or at ten years of it minimum. Why had he confessed? If he hadn't, he would have at least had more time to think everything over. He could have come up with a better excuse as to why he was at Tyler's hotel and to why Siobhan was stabbed fifteen times. But, no he had to confess the truth! Why was he such an idiot? Was there a way he could fix it? Was there? Or was he stuck in here forever? He rubbed his hands together as she continued speaking, but he had zoned her out. He was freezing. He was bitter. He had to get out of here.

"I'm going to recant," he finally said, much more to himself than to her. In fact, he had all but forgotten she was even there.

"Excuse me?" she said, taken aback.

He looked her straight in the eye. "Get me my lawyer. I'm going to recant my confession."

* * *

Juliet climbed out of the shower feeling very refreshed after the events of the day. She had fallen in a dirty litter box full of the most rabbit pooped she had ever seen in her life and had had to ride home on the bus reeking of it. She wrapped one towel around herself and the other around her hair to dry it enough before it could be blow dried. She could hear one of the babies crying in the next room and groaned. She had invited Tessa over to watch a movie tonight, and she just hoped that her friend wouldn't have to listen to it all night. Although she hadn't exactly told her father or Bridget about Tessa's coming, she assumed they wouldn't mind. Well, maybe Andrew would mind, as he wasn't exactly keen on Juliet talking to anyone, or at least that's what he said. If he really meant it, then he wouldn't have given her her cell phone back, right? Besides, she hadn't had a friend over in two weeks and deserved some fun.

Because she and Tessa were friends, after all. They had been friends ever since Juliet had discovered her own mother had been the one to give Tessa brain damage, even if they hadn't talked much since.

She threw on her pajamas just in time for the phone to ring, signaling the presence of someone down in the lobby who wanted to come up. She grabbed the phone before either of her parents could reach it. In fact, they probably couldn't even hear it over the babies' wailing.

Tessa appeared in the threshold of the elevator a few minutes later wearing some hot pink footy PJs, a strange contrast to her usual gothy black, and carrying a backpack over her shoulder.

"Hey!" Juliet threw her arms around her friend in excitement. "This is gonna be so much fun! I have seen anybody in forever. How are you?"

"I'm fine," said Tessa, obviously a bit taken aback. "But you're hurting my neck."

"Oh sorry," Juliet pulled apart. "I was just really excited to finally hang out with someone. It's been forever."

"What's going on in here—oh hi Tessa." Bridget came into the living room patting a crying baby on her back. It was Regan, as she was wearing a little blue armband Juliet had given her to help tell the twins apart. Just because her parents knew who was who didn't mean she did. "What are you doing here?"

"We were gonna hang out, Mom," said Juliet.

"Ok, but I don't know if you're father will—"

"Juliet, what is she doing here?" Andrew walked into the room before Bridget could finish her thought.

"You never said I couldn't have friends over, Daddy." Juliet replied, trying to sound innocent.

But, Andrew looked stern. "No, I didn't," he said. "I thought I made that clear enough when I brought you home from jail."

Ok, she knew what he meant. Besides, the fact that Tessa was Juliet's former partner in crime probably didn't help his feelings much. But, still. It was just some clean fun, nothing more, and Bridget looked much more sympathetic.

"Andrew, it's ok. She hasn't seen anyone in quite a while. They can have fun just this once."

But, he didn't look convinced. In fact, he had what only could be an angry look at Tessa as she sat down on the couch. Bridget handed Regan to him before walking into the kitchen to open the refrigerator and turn on the microwave. It was feeding time for the twins, no doubt, and she was preparing their bottles.

Juliet didn't know what her father's problem was. She needed and deserved to have friends over, even if it was Tessa. She decided it was best to ignore him and so she walked over toward the television to comb through the DVDs they had. But, she could still feel her father's eyes on her.

"Come on, honey." Bridget patted his arm over a still screaming Regan when she came back with the two warm bottles of formula. "We're gonna go feed the babies, ok girls? Holler if you need anything."

"Sure, Mom," said Juliet. She ignored her father's look and went over to the TV to look through more DVDs. He retreated back into his room without another word, but the mere briskness of his British walk told Juliet he was much more than angry. Bridget sighed and followed, baby bottles in hand.

"Do you want to watch Paris, _Je t'aime_?" Juliet finally asked as she pulled the movie from the pile. It was the only one that looked remotely interesting, but in all honesty, she was really into watching anything at the moment, not after the mood her father seemed to have put the whole house in. "It's a pretty good movie."

"Whatever floats your boat," Tessa replied, looking a bit uneasy, as though she were ashamed to come here after all. Juliet could see her eyes darting toward the back bedroom. There was no doubt in Juliet's mind that she was listening to Andrew and Bridget talking.

But, Juliet chose to ignore it. "Good. I'll get some sodas. Sorry we're all out of popcorn."

"That's fine," said her friend in a small voice.

Juliet trotted to the kitchen and came back with two Dr. Peppers and handed one over to Tessa.

"So, your dad doesn't really like me, does he?" her friend asked, although Juliet hoped she wouldn't.

"Well, he's still mad about the whole rape thing," Juliet tried to explain. "But, don't let him scare you. It's not like he'll kick you out, not with my stepmom here."

"Alright," Tessa nodded, taking a small sip of soda, although she didn't look convinced in the slightest.

"No, really," Juliet insisted. "He's more angry at me for inviting someone over when I knew I wasn't supposed to. I should have asked him first."

"So…" there was a short pause as the commercials began to start. "When did you decide to start calling her 'Mom'?"

"Who? Bridget?" Who else would it be? "It's just something I started doing recently, like, in the past week. She's really become a mother to me, so I just thought it fit."

"Oh, ok."

It was the truth, what more could Tessa want? Her voice sounded unconvinced, or perhaps that was because she was hiding something else. Suddenly, she gasped.

"What's wrong?" Juliet asked, a bit annoyed. "I told you, my dad won't stay mad for forever. Don't worry."

"It's not that," Tessa said. "I just remembered…Did you hear what happened to Ellie?" Tessa asked as the movie started. Juliet looked at her confused. "No…what happened? Did she get kicked out of school?" If only, although something in Tessa's expression told her otherwise.

"No…she was in a car crash this morning. Her brother posted it all over Facebook." Juliet's heart dropped.

Tessa pulled out her laptop from her backpack and turned it on. "Apparently, she was heading somewhere with her mom and they got hit. The mom's fine, but he said Ellie's in pretty bad shape. See?"

She pulled her computer around to show Juliet, and what was to be seen was terrifying. Parker Wheaton had posted a picture of his sister lying in the hospital with bandages all over her face. She appeared to have several broken ribs on the right side of her body, and maybe even a broken pelvis by the looks of it. The captioned under the photo read "Praying for Sis! We love you." It was followed by an array of posts that he had written to update everyone on her status, and it didn't look good.

"That's horrible," Juliet said, not knowing what else she was supposed to say. All she could think about was how a scar over Ellie's eye would now be the least of her problems. "Should we…go by and see her?"

"Not tonight," said Tessa, rubbing her neck. "She needs time with her family now. Would you like to go tomorrow, or do you have community service? Parker wrote the name of her hospital room on here somewhere." She scrambled to look for it.

"No, not tomorrow," said Juliet. "The shelter's closed." Although, she had to admit, she wished it weren't. "We could go by and see her if you want to."

But the question was, did Juliet want to? Of course not. She couldn't face Ellie at all, not now.

* * *

Maybe Henry was being an idiot for doing this. He didn't know. All he knew for certain was that he couldn't spend the rest of his life in prison and that that confession was the worst mistake he had ever made in his life. Yet, Karla appeared to be dead set against any recants. In fact, she was doing more talking into the phone behind the glass than his lawyer was, that was for sure.

"No, no, no, no!" She kept shaking her head frantically. "Henry, there is no way you can recant and have it seem plausible! The prosecution will eat you up with all the evidence they have against you."

She glared at him, her eyes burning with anger. "They have that tape. They have your fingerprints. They have God knows what else to convict you! You can't go back and say 'oh no, I didn't do it.' A jury won't by it."

She continued to give him a death glare, while his lawyer appeared to have a much calmer take on the whole issue. He was way more on Henry's side that she was. He took the phone from her hand and tried to talk levelly.

"Although your sister makes an excellent point, Henry," he glared at her as though she were insane. "There _are_ ways in which you can recant and not make it sound so foolish. You can say you were lying because you were coerced by the police into confessing. That actually happens a lot with cases. People come in and claim the police harassed them into a confession."

"But what will that do?" Karla interrupted. "If the jury are smart, they're going to know that he's making the whole thing up, and then he'll be in even worse trouble than he is now. God damn it Henry. Just because the jurors"

She grabbed the phone back, as if Henry could only hear her through it. He rolled his eyes.

"Are you saying you think I did it?" he asked her accusingly.

She made a face as if to say that a blind deaf man could tell that he had done it.

"Henry, listen to me," she said, ignoring his question. "Right now, you can get off with a plea bargain because you cooperated with the police. If you take it back, who knows what will happen? You won't be guaranteed anything. Not your freedom, not anything."

But, no. He had to have a chance at something. He thought of his little redheaded boys whose brains were being fed garbage by their grandfather. He had to get them away from him, and if he didn't fight, then he would never get the chance.

"I don't care," he finally said, the cold air from the vent above him blowing straight down and through his thin orange suit. "I don't care. There has to be a way I can get out of this. I'll take the harassment if I have to. Towers hates me, anyway. I can come up with something."


	19. Fighting a Losing Battle

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long. School's really been keeping me. I hope all of you are still there. Here's Chapter Nineteen. Enjoy! Please leave a review! I realize this chapter isn't the best, but I wanted to give you guys something. I hope you like it just as much.

Love from,

May

**Chapter Nineteen: Fighting a Losing Battle**

Sunday

"I didn't kill Siobhan Martin or Tyler Barrett." Henry kept saying the same thing over and over again to the judge as his attorney and Karla were going over the conditions of his recant.

They were standing in the judge's office, a small, cramped room that reminded Henry much of his grandmother's attic back in Chicago. It was filled with boxes of crap and more file cabinets than he could count. Never in his life would he have imagined a judge's office to look like, well, _shit. _Weren't they supposed to be neat and orderly people?

He knew that wasn't something that he should be considering right at this moment. His freedom was on the line, but somehow, the state of Judge Whitfield's was a comforting thought, something that distracted him from what he was dealing with. It distracted him from the words that were issuing from his mouth, as if his mind and his mouth weren't connected at all. It was like his mouth was a robot, programmed to say the words "I didn't do it," and that was all. Hell, he had practiced the words so many times in the past day that they _should _have been automatic.

"_Henry!"_ Karla finally shouted, stomping her high-heeled foot on the floor. "Let the damn judge talk!"

He finally turned to look at Judge Whitfield, trying to convince himself that what he was saying _was _the truth.

"I didn't kill either of them," he said again, stiffly.

"I understand that's what you're saying, Mr. Butler," the judge, an elderly woman with steel gray hair and bright green eyes, replied irritably, adjusting the paper that was in front of her. It took him a moment to realize that it was his signed confession. He knew she was sick and tired of hearing him say the same thing over and over, but what else could he do? If he kept saying it and was adamant about it, then maybe someone would believe him, even if it wasn't true. "But, you do understand that once you throw this confession—"she waved it in front of him—"out the door that the prosecution can charge with anything they so well please?"

"I don't care," he said. "I didn't do it."

The room was silent for a moment. Karla had her face in her hands and the attorney was stone-faced. Finally, Judge Whitfield took off her reading glasses and spoke.

"Then who did, Mr. Butler? Can you tell us that? Why did you confess the first time?"

There was an even longer silence. Karla still had her face in her hands, but the attorney was looking at Henry rather interestedly.

"I was upset. I was desperate, and I thought confessing would get me a lighter sentence. I needed to see my boys again, but now I know that the only way I'll be able to is if I'm found innocent. I had to go back on it. I'm sorry. I just…."

That was all he could say.

"Well, regardless of what you say, Mr. Butler, you'll be prosecuted now," the judge said. "And if you don't have a defense, then you'll be more likely to be convicted."

Duh. He wasn't an idiot.

Or maybe he was. That was how he got trapped in this mess in the first place. His stomach was twisted. His palms were sweaty. He had to find a way out, and before he could stop himself…

"Self-defense," he said shortly. "It was self-defense. She attacked me and I defended myself. It was self-defense, and I never even met Tyler Barrett."

The judge looked at him, a glare in her eye. She knew it wasn't true. It was obvious. What he had told Andrew and Bridget had been the truth. He remembered the look on her face, the look that was wrenched in pain, not of physical harm, but of emotional hurt.

"_Surely, you love me," the look said, tears in the blue eyes. _

_Then, there was stab after stab after stab and the thought of how he just couldn't risk her getting up again. He had thought of his children, of Gemma, of all the pain he had gone through. There was no way he would let Siobhan Martin ruin anyone else's life._

_No, he could not let her survive._

"Alright, Mr. Butler." the judge's voice brought him back to the present. She took out a large stamp from her desk and pressed it against the paper with a thud. "This confession is void. Self-defense it is."

* * *

A loud ring awoke Bridget from her state of sleep. Portia and Regan had had another rough day. They had cried all through the morning until about three o'clock, refusing to eat. It was only until around five when Bridget and Andrew were able to get them fed and put down for a nap, and that gave all of them a chance to rest. They had both fallen asleep on the couch.

As Bridget's eyes opened, she noticed Andrew's reaching for the phone on the stand.

"Hello?" he said gruffly, rubbing his eyes.

Bridget closed her own eyes again and groaned. Just when she had fallen asleep, of course this had to happen. It was probably some sales person again. They had received a lot of those calls lately. She halfway wished Andrew would just disconnect the home phone.

It wasn't until she heard Andrew rise from the couch that she knew it wasn't a salesperson at all.

"What?" he said, incredulously. She opened her eyes and saw him beginning to pace. "Why would he do that?"

She had no idea who he was talking to. Maybe it was Claudine. Could Arbogast have done something with the company that Andrew didn't want? Bridget couldn't imagine what, of course. She knew nothing about funds.

Then, her heart tightened. What if he turned Andrew in to the police? Why would he do a thing like that after firing him? How could he be so heartless?

Andrew finally hung up the phone after what felt like hours. He turned to her, his face white.

"What is it?" she asked, getting up off the couch, her heart pounding.

He took a deep breath. "That was the courthouse. Henry recanted his confession" was the response.

* * *

The hallways of Bellevue hospital were some of the dirtiest Juliet had ever seen. Tessa appeared to be thinking the same thing, because the look on her face told Juliet that she smelled something disgusting, and it wasn't the usual hospital disinfectant. London was there with them, still wearing her church clothes and humming a tune. It might have seemed strange for London to come, but Juliet needed someone to lighten the mood, and Andrea, although she was kind and friendly, wasn't the one to do it. London, with her perpetual happiness, was the one who could cheer anyone up, and it wasn't necessarily in a religious way. London was usually good about keeping church-related things to herself.

Juliet didn't know what to think about church. Catherine was not religious and so they had never gone to church in Miami, and Andrew wasn't one to force his religious beliefs onto Juliet. When he did go to church, he went alone, except for the few times he had gone with Bridget over the past few months, and never said a word about it. But, Juliet supposed today was a good day, if any, to be religious.

Ellie was hurt badly, judging from what her brother had told everyone. Not badly enough that her injuries were life-threatening, but badly enough. Both her legs were broken in two places and her ribs were cracked. She would have to learn how to walk all over again when the time came.

"Here it is," London whispered, as they came to an open door. Room 209. It was the room number Parker Wheaton had posted via Facebook. Juliet expected the whole school to be there, but peering in, all she could see was Ellie's family, her mom and dad and brother. It made her wonder if Ellie had many friends at all. Her family, save Parker, who was busy playing a game on his iPhone, looked at the three girls with unreadable expressions. Or at least, they were unreadable to Juliet. Truly, she didn't want to know Ellie's parents' feelings about her being there. She just wanted to apologize and leave.

"Hello!" London was the first to speak, in her bright and bubbly way. Juliet wasn't sure how well London knew Ellie, if she even knew her at all, but she was sure acting like she knew her well. "We're here to see Ellie. How is she doing?"

"I'd be doing better if that bitch wasn't here," came a rough from the far side of the room. Juliet's stomach turned.

Ellie was sitting up in the bed, almost completely bandaged, an IV cord attached to her, eating some chocolate pudding. She had bruises on her face and was glaring at Juliet with a deathly stare. If looks could kill….

"Now, Ellie," her mother began.

"No, Mom. I want her to leave. Get out!"

Juliet froze, but Tessa spoke.

"We're sorry, Ellie. We really are. Juliet just wanted to come by and apologize to you."

Ellie wasn't even looking at Juliet anymore. She turned her head away from her and towards the window. "I don't care. Go away."

"Ellie," her father spoke and went over to stroke her hair "They're just trying to be nice."

Juliet was very surprised at how well Ellie's parents were taking her being there. She had expected them to shoo her out, but instead they were supporting her.

"Ellie, I'm sorry," she finally said, stepping towards the bed, not too close, though. She was afraid Ellie might snap and lunge at her. Huh, like she could harm anyone in her state. "I'm really, sincerely sorry."

But, Ellie refused to look at her. "Tell her to leave, Dad."

But Juliet didn't need any more telling. She turned and ran out of the room, crying.


	20. The Suspect

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! I hope you're all doing well. Here's Chapter Twenty. Please don't forget to review! I need to know what you guys think about everything. What are some suggestions for future chapters? What is appealing to you guys? Please answer!

Love From,

May

**Chapter Twenty: The Suspect  
**

Monday.

The elevator door _dinged_, causing Bridget to turn around in her seat on the couch, even though she couldn't see the elevator from there. She had been feeding Portia her formula while Andrew changed Regan's diaper. They were just about to head to the park. It was a sunny day and Bridget really wanted to get out of the house. She was excited. Today was the first day that she had noticed her stomach had started to get round. Andrew was so happy that he had immediately set up an appointment for an ultra sound. Bridget had almost forgotten that he hadn't had the chance to see any pictures of the baby yet.

"Hi Juliet!" Bridget called out. She knew Juliet was still upset over Ellie not taking her apology.

"Hi everybody," Juliet replied sullenly as she made her way into the living room, kicking off her shoes.

"How was the shelter, sweetheart?" asked Andrew, picking Regan up and placing her in her stroller.

"Horrible," Juliet replied, heading towards the kitchen. A few seconds later, Bridget heard the sound of the refrigerator opening. "Pickles got adopted. London's gonna be pissed when she finds out."

"That's too bad," said Bridget. "I know how much London liked him." She decided to change the subject. "So, we were just about to go to the park. Would you like to come?"

"No," Juliet called simply. She opened a can of soda. "I'm gonna go take a shower."

She made her way to the bathroom. That was how Juliet had been for the past day: very short with talking. She refused to talk about anything that had happened yesterday between herself and Ellie, so Bridget had tried doing most of the talking. She had tried to explain that people didn't come to forgiveness so easily, that it wasn't something that Juliet should dwell on, that it was ok. Ellie just needed some time, she had tried to reason, and if she came around, she came around. If not, then, well, life was life, and some people weren't into forgiveness.

Portia finally drained the last of her bottle, so Bridget placed her over her shoulder to try to burp her.

"She's not going to get any better if she just mopes around here," Andrew said. "She needs some stimulation. I'm going to go talk to her and convince her to come with us."

He walked down the hallway toward the bathroom. Bridget just hoped she still had her clothes on. If not, then she would be in an even worse mood once he came knocking on the door. At Andrew's first knock, Portia let out a tiny burp and cooed.

"Good girl," said Bridget, smiling. "Ready to go to the park?"

She placed her in the seat above her sister in the stroller and pushed them towards the elevator door. However, after about three minutes, she regretted it, because Andrew was still trying to convince Juliet to come and Bridget's feet were getting tired from standing in one spot. Finally, Juliet emerged from the bathroom still wearing her shelter clothes.

"Alright, I'll go," she announced, "but only because I want to see the shirtless guys playing volleyball."

They reached Marcus Garvey Memorial Park around half past three. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, and the warmth of the sun was making Bridget even happier. It had been raining for the past few days, so this was a nice change. The park had a long paved trail that was just big enough to fit the twins' stroller, so they decided to take a walk. Juliet went along with them, as to her sadness, there were no shirtless guys to ogle over.

They walked along, admiring the trees and the flowers that were aligned on the pathway. It wasn't until they were about halfway through the trail that Bridget brought up a more serious matter. It had been bothering her since yesterday afternoon.

"So, what about Henry?"

"What about him?" Andrew asked, turning toward her with a questioning look, one that told Bridget that he wasn't keen on talking about him, but they needed to do it. This was a conversation that they needed to have.

"I just mean, do you think they'll call us as witnesses at his trial?"

Because they were witnesses. They had witnessed Henry's entire confession, and certainly the prosecution would use that in court. Then, the defense would make some statement about how Henry was under the influence of drugs when he was confessing. Bridget rolled her eyes. Of course, they would think of something like that.

"I don't know," Andrew replied, peeking into the stroller to take a look at his daughters, who were now sound asleep. "Perhaps." His reply was distant, as though he were preoccupied with something else.

It was more than likely, if indeed the prosecution decided to use his confession against him, that they would be witnesses.

They took hands and continued to walk down the pathway, the wheels of the stroller crunching gravel against them. The wind began to blow through the trees, so Bridget pulled the hoods over the stroller. Juliet was walking a little ways behind them, picking up rocks and throwing them in the bushes, much like a toddler would.

"What's wrong?" Bridget finally asked Andrew, noticing he still had a distracted look on his face. She turned to make sure no one else was around. There was an old couple up ahead walking their poodle, but that was it.

"Nothing," Andrew responded quietly, aware of the couple up ahead as well. "It's just…."

He trailed off and waited for the couple to pass, and then continued in a whisper, "I can't believe he actually did it, that he killed Siobhan."

Bridget nodded. She couldn't believe it, either. Honestly, she couldn't. First Tyler, then Siobhan. It didn't make any sense at all. Was he insane? Or was he incredibly evil?

She remembered the day she had found out about Tyler and the look Henry had given her when she accused him. She thought of that awful open-mouthed kiss he had given her that day at the Soho…Uck! Of course, that had been planned. He had been trying to distract her from Tyler so that he could get to him first. It was obvious now. There was no telling what went on in Henry's mind.

"I know," she finally responded.

"Well, I can believe it," Juliet finally spoke, which scared Bridget half to death, causing her to feel a bit dizzy. The baby must have felt the jolt. "They were both insane. I hope he gets the death penalty."

"Juliet, please don't be like that," Andrew scolded her.

"And even if the prosecution did give it to him, we would request against it," Bridget said, knowing that Andrew was thinking the same thing. "Besides, there's no death penalty in New York anyway. The most he's going to get is life in prison."

"What?" Juliet was appalled. "Why not? Why would you do that?" She hadn't even heard the last part of what Bridget had just said.

Andrew sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "Because he would suffer enough in prison."

"You guys are crazy!" But, Juliet decided to go back to throwing rocks at the bushes and said no more on the subject.

* * *

Rock Springs, Wyoming

Erin walked into the crime lab feeling relieved and sad at the same time. Today was her very last day to come to the lab. That is, until she got a real job. She opened the door and said "Hello" to the receptionist, a knot in her stomach. It was a dilemma. She really didn't want to leave, but she also didn't particularly enjoy some of the people she was working with. She hoped Kate wouldn't be in today. At the same time, she was probably going to miss that evil little fish. She walked past it, its mouth wide open, as usual, and made a face.

"Hey Erin," the receptionist, Holly, a smiling blond woman, called back just as Erin was about in the locker room.

"Yeah?" she turned back. Then, she corrected herself. "Yes, ma'am?" She was horrible at being polite.

"Could you take this back to the lab for me?" Holly asked. There was a small box on the desk with a stamp across it.

"Sure."

"Thanks. Give it to Steve."

Erin took it and examined it when she was out of reach of Holly. It was a small brown package with no return address. It simply stated "Wyoming FBI Crime Lab," along with the forwarding address, of course.

She turned it over, trying not to shake it just in case it was fragile. Nope. No return address on any side of the box.

A sudden chill ran down her spine, and she felt goosebumps start to mingle with her freckles.

What if it was a bomb set to go off at any second? What if she had somehow activated it from turning the box? Nah. She was being stupid. It would have gone off by now. Still, she was curious. Anything that showed up at the lab had to hold some significance, and the wheels were turning inside Erin's head as she thought about what that significance could be.

When she reached the back lab, she saw Steve looking inside a corpse's mouth with a weird pair of tongs, saying something about how the victim had a foreign object lodged in his throat. Bruce and June were also there, taking notes on clipboards. Erin looked around. Kate was nowhere in sight, thank goodness.

"Hey Steve," she said after he had finished talking. "I've got a package for you."

"Ok, thanks." He said, distractedly. "Just set it over there." He pointed to a green chair in the corner. "I'll take a look at it in a sec."

She did as she was told, carefully, not wanting to cause an explosion. The possibility of it being a bomb, no matter how ridiculous (Or was it so ridiculous?), was still in the back of her head. "So where do you want me today?" she asked, trying to take her mind off it.

"Get your suit on first," he said, still preoccupied with the dead body in front of him.

"Sure thing."

When she came back from the locker room, Steve was opening up the box she had brought in.

"It looks like a bunch of DVD's," he said. "I'll take a look at them."

"Can I have a look, too?" asked Erin, wanting to take part in something new today. Besides, any unmarked package was interesting.

"Sure, why not? Videotapes are part of forensics, after all. Come on back. " He instructed June and Bruce to keep examining the body, and then led Erin to a back room she had never been in before. It was cold and very dark. Until he flipped the lights on, and then the whole world went as bright as Heaven. "Sorry if the light's too bright," he said. "We just got new bulbs."

It was the surveillance room where they took a look at all the suspicious footage. A small, cramped area with more televisions and gadgets than Erin could count. Ok, not that many. There were only six T.V.'s, but still, that was a lot for such a tiny room.

Steve placed the DVD into an old player in the far corner of the room, the corner with the largest television set.

"Let's see what we have here."

It turned out to be an enhanced surveillance footage tape of some kind, obviously cut right in the middle to what the person wanted the police to see. There were three men, all Native American, leading away a black man from a hotel room. She recognized the black man instantly. It was Malcolm Ward. His picture was on the wall in the lab. Suddenly, she regretted watching the video. She couldn't believe she was watching a man's last few moments, or however long it was, before he died. It made her sick. But, it wasn't until she noticed something else that she really felt like throwing up. In fact, her heart stopped.

She recognized one of the perpetrators. The dark wavy hair, the nervous-looking eyes….

It was Miguel Oxendine.


	21. The Ultrasound

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Here's Chapter Twenty-One! Thanks to all who have reviewed thus far. Please keep it up. Special thanks to Hayha for helping me with this chapter.

Love From,

May

**Chapter Twenty-One: The Ultrasound  
**

Tuesday.

Andrew felt his pulse racing. He couldn't have been happier. Ever since yesterday, minus that awful conversation he and Bridget had had about Henry Butler, his mind had been solely on the baby, and now he and Bridget were on their way to the hospital to have her ultrasound. He was about to have a heart attack from all of the excitement. Of course, he couldn't show Bridget how happy he was. That would be un-gentleman-like of him. Still, he was about to see his baby, the first and only baby he had ever had with a woman who actually loved him. It was mind-blowing. He knew it wasn't supposed to be, and that everyone he had ever been with was theoretically supposed to love him, but he knew that wasn't the case.

He remembered Catherine's first ultrasound quite vividly. She had complained about the gel that the doctors had to put on her stomach, saying it was too cold, and there he was, a twenty-year-old _boy _scared to death at what lie ahead for him. He had shaken violently throughout the entire procedure, and had almost vomited at one point. He had been worried about having a child, not having a clue how to raise it, and at the time, he had been more worried about his parents' reaction to the news than anything else. He remembered thinking how ashamed he was: He had been a virgin before he had met Catherine, and now look where he was.

No, it had not been a pleasant experience.

Now, though, it was as if his entire world had turned upside down. He felt nothing but joy. His hands were trembling with eagerness and anticipation as he held on to Bridget's in the taxi. He couldn't wait to see the baby, no matter how small and unformed it was, no matter that they wouldn't know the sex for another few weeks.

"So, how are you feeling about all this?" Bridget asked him suddenly, bringing him from his thoughts. She leaned against him, tucking her head underneath his chin. "Your hands are shaking."

"I'm fantastic," he said honestly. A sudden rush of affection overtook him. Oh , hell with being a gentleman! He turned her head to give her a kiss on the lips, which she gladly returned. "I can't wait to see it. I'm so happy."

"I wonder what sex it'll be," she said curiously, patting her belly.

In all honesty, with three girls, Andrew was hoping for a boy, but he couldn't voice it. Truly, though, it didn't matter. He was just happy to have one with the perfect woman.

When they finally made it to the hospital, he was in such a good mood that he gave the taxi driver an extra large tip, and was very keen on scooping Bridget up off her feet and carrying her in there, just to show how proud he was. But, he decided against it. He didn't want to be foolish.

The maternity ward itself was more crowded than he had ever seen it. There were fourteen women in all in the waiting room, a few so large that they looked as if they could give birth right then and there, and they were just going in for check-ups. Bridget took a seat in a chair farthest from the other women while Andrew signed her in.

He had to say that he was very proud of her. She had been a real trooper the past two weeks, dealing with two babies and a pregnancy, although she hadn't had that many bad symptoms, save the occasional nausea. She had done very well with Portia and Regan, much better than Catherine ever did with Juliet, and while there was no telling how Siobhan would have raised the twins, Andrew doubted she could have done much better.

He sat down beside Bridget, who was now reading a magazine on prenatal care.

"I should have gotten one of these sooner," she whispered, gesturing towards the magazine. "It has a lot of good tips in here. I think we should subscribe."

"If you want to," he said. "How much does it cost?"

"Hmmm…" Bridget turned the magazine over to the first page. "Seventeen dollars a month… and look, it even ships internationally, so if we wanted to move to Cardiff, then we could get it there, too."

_Cardiff. _To be honest, after Bridget moved back in, he had thought about it. He'd thought about retiring, even, but he hadn't mentioned either to Bridget.

"Why would you want to move to Cardiff?" he asked her.

"It's just a thought," she replied, flipping through the magazine. "Juliet mentioned it to me. She seems pretty eager."

He chuckled. "Is that because she thinks she'll get in a school that'll ignore her background if she moves out of the country?"

"Maybe. Oh, look, it says here the baby's hands and feet start developing at seven weeks. I think that's where I am now." She squeezed his hand. "It's supposed to look like this." She showed him the drawing. It didn't look much like it had hands, but Andrew could certainly see the head at least. It also seemed to have a bit of its tailbone left.

"Oh, look," Bridget said, mournfully. "It says 'You may also get a sudden urge to pee constantly due to increased blood volume and the extra fluid being processed through your kidneys.' Hmm…Well, I don't have that…yet." She continued to read the article. "Hmm…That's weird."

"What's weird?" he asked, looking over her shoulder.

"It also says that my body isn't supposed to be changing yet. Outwardly, I mean. I'm not supposed to start developing a bump until ten weeks."

"Are you sure you're seven weeks?" Andrew asked, thinking about it. It was certainly possible that she was over. They had been very active during the months of January and February, right up until Bridget had moved out for the few days before Andrew had been shot.

"The first doctor that I visited said I was five weeks, and that was two weeks ago," she said. "He showed me a picture and everything."

After about twenty minutes, a doctor was finally ready to see Bridget. When she got into the freezing examining room, the doctor had to her lay down on a long table and pull up her shirt. The first thing Andrew noticed was that she had goosebumps on her stomach.

"I'm going to put this gel on you," the doctor explained, "and then we can see how far along you really are."

Once the gel went on, Andrew got really excited. He pulled up a chair next to the table and took Bridget's hand. He couldn't wait. He was finally going to see his baby.

And what a baby it turned out to be. The heartbeat was clear and so were the fingers and toes, and even the nose. Andrew let out a small laugh at seeing that. Yet again, he had another baby who inherited his long, straight snout.

"I would put you at right about ten weeks," the doctor finally informed them after they had had a chance to ogle the picture.

"Ten weeks…" Andrew thought about it after they had gotten back in the taxi. "That was right before I got shot."

So, Bridget had been pregnant in the loft that night. It was scary to think about. He could have lost two members of his family from a gunshot.

Fortunately, Bridget was there to lighten the mood. "That means I remember the day I conceived."

"You do?" he looked at her.

"Yeah," she smiled. "We'd just got back from a dinner party and I wanted to take a bubble bath, so you decided you'd join me. Or it could have been that day Olivia made you mad and you came in swearing so I had to calm you down, or maybe it was Valentine's Day, remember? You put rose petals all over the bed. Or—"

"Alright, ok," he said and gave her a kiss. "I get the picture." The taxi driver was looking back in the rear-view mirror as if they were insane.

When they arrived home, they found Juliet and London sitting on the couch watching Nancy Grace in the living room.

"If she were to prosecute Henry," Juliet was saying darkly. "He wouldn't have a chance. Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!"

She ran over to them and planted a kiss on both their cheeks.

"Juliet, where are the babies?" Andrew asked accusingly, the first thing to come out of his mouth. He knew she wasn't so irresponsible as to leave them alone by themselves, was she?

"Relax, Daddy," she replied nonchalantly. "Greer's got 'em. She's in your room."

"Yeah," London said from her position on the couch. "She's singing them a lullaby in there. Like that'll make them go to sleep." She rolled her eyes. "She used to sing to me all the time when I was little and all it did for me was make me wanna join an opera."

"How was the doctors?" Juliet skipped alongside Andrew and Bridget as they made their way into their own room. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"We still don't know yet," said Bridget. "But, we do know I'm farther along than I originally thought I was. I'm ten weeks. Here's some pictures."

She handed Juliet the little black-and-white photos from her purse. "See? It's got hands and feet now."

"Wow! A real baby picture!" Juliet took a look at them. "Wow, Daddy. It has your nose."

Greer came out of the room with a smile on her face. "The girls are asleep," she said proudly, as though she had heard every word out of London's mouth.

"Thanks for taking care of them," Andrew said. He didn't know whether or not to be disappointed in Juliet for not taking care of the twins herself, but then again, there were two of them. Still, sitting around watching television while someone else did all the work wasn't part of the deal.

"You're welcome," Greer said. "They were great for me."

She and London ended up staying for dinner, and all Juliet could talk about through it was how she wanted to stand outside the courthouse during Henry's trial so she could throw tomatoes at him when he came out, earning her a scolding from Andrew. Bridget tried to talk about happier things, like potential names for the baby, but Juliet wasn't having it. It was obvious to Andrew that she was still angry about him and Bridget being so lenient Henry's case, but what else could they do? He wasn't getting the death penalty, no matter how much Juliet wanted it.

When Greer and London left, Andrew and Bridget went back to talking about potential baby names. They were sitting at the desk in Andrew's office looking over a Baby Name Generator website on his computer, Bridget sitting on Andrew's lap.

"What about Clara?" Bridget asked. "For a girl? I know it means 'light.' Or what about something Irish? Here's Caitlin; and there's Colleen. Or we could go full on and have the Irish spelling and everything. That would sure keep up tradition. I really like Mairead and Saoirse. " She scrolled down. "There are some really pretty names here."

But, Andrew was still thinking more along the lines of the Shakespearean tradition that was going on within the family. For a girl, that is.

"What about Cordelia? Or Isabella." Then, he thought again. "Nevermind. Scratch Isabella. I hate that name." He wouldn't risk having any Bellas in his family.

"And what about for a boy?" Bridget asked. "We could go Welsh if you wanted to. What Evan or Ioan? Those are nice. Or what about David, even? He was the patron saint of Wales."

"How do you know about that?" Andrew asked her.

"I do my research," she said simply. "I've been looking at names since before I was pregnant. I'd always wanted to be a mom and I figured some of the fun of it was picking out the names. But, my favorites change over time. I really like David now. It's a good strong biblical name."

And now that really went well with their own situation, Andrew suddenly realized. A man with so many moral flaws, ultimately forgiven by God. Yes, David would be a good name for their son.

Then, he got another idea. "What about David Malcolm?" he asked her.

"Hmmm..." she leaned her head back and thought for a moment. "David Malcolm," she repeated, smiling. "It sounds like a good name. The names of two saints...I like it."

* * *

Victor Machado hated interrogating people, especially those whom he knew to be guilty, and Miguel Oxendine was no exception. A nervous young man with everything to hide and everything to lose, he wasn't one to admit to anything very easily, even if the evidence were staring him straight in the face.

They had arrested Oxendine yesterday afternoon, after Erin Branaugh, the young intern at the crime lab, had identified him on the surveillance footage to Malcolm Ward's hotel room, but they hadn't been able to interrogate him until today. So, he had stayed behind bars, screaming all night long about how he had nothing to do with anything and how he wanted a lawyer.

But, Machado knew better. What he didn't know and couldn't comprehend was why a clean-cut medical student was hanging out with a bunch of drug-dealing mob thugs. But, anyhow, he had to get to the bottom of it. He owed it to both Shaylene and Malcolm to solve this case, even if Macawi was already dead. He wouldn't rest until all the perpetrators involved were behind bars.

"Miguel," Machado began, right as he sat down in the interrogation room. He was the only agent there. The rest had decided to give the case over to him, since it was so dear to his heart. "First off, may I call you Miguel? I don't want to be rude."

"May I call you Agent Guyliner?" was Oxendine's reply. "I don't want to be too polite."

But, like he did to everyone else who called him that and its variants, Machado decided to ignore that comment.

"Alright, so I'll call you Miguel," he said, tapping his fingers on the desk. "Miguel, can you tell me why you were on the surveillance footage to Malcolm Ward's hotel room?"

"Don't know," the young man responded. "Wasn't me."

"Then tell me why you purchased a plane ticket to New York three days before Mr. Ward was murdered?" They had done a full search of all Oxendine's credit card records and had found just that. "And why Erin Branaugh identified you in the footage?"

There was a long pause. Machado leaned in to get a better look at Oxendine, who was staring at him blankly, just trying to not comprehend anything and failing miserably.

"That wasn't me," Oxendine finally said, but his body had suddenly gone rigid and he was no longer looking Machado in the eye. "I didn't do anything. That stupid Raggedy Ann. She doesn't know anything."

Machado let out a chuckle and leaned back in his chair. "That's what they all say, bud. But, you can't ignore the evidence forever. We compared the person in the surveillance to a photograph of you, forensically, I might add. It's a match."

"Where's my lawyer?" Oxendine shouted suddenly. "I thought he was supposed to be here! I don't have to answer until he's present."

"You don't have to answer even then," Machado clarified. "But, I can ask you as many questions as I want."

So, Oxendine remained silent for the next ten minutes, ignoring all of Machado's questions. It wasn't until Machado got down to the meat of the matter that Oxendine noticeably started to break down.

"So what is a medical student doing with a bunch of thugs?" Machado finally asked. "Do you use drugs recreationally or something? Or do you just have a porn addiction? I know strip clubs are awfully fancied by you college guys."

Oxendine began to tremble. "Stop! Stop!" he shouted. "I didn't kill Malcolm Ward," he said again, still not looking at Machado's face. "I didn't kill him at all."

"Then, why were you there?"

Oxendine sighed and put his face in his hands. When he finally put them down, Machado could see that his eyes were watering. Right then and there, his lawyer burst into the room.

"You have the right to remain silent, Miguel. Remember that," the man said as he sat down hastily. He was a large disheveled man, obviously very used to being late. God, Machado hated incompetent people, especially defense attorneys. All they ever did was cause more trouble than they were worse.

"And you have the requirement not to be late to my interrogation," Oxendine replied haughtily, anger in his eyes. "I could fire you for that, you know."

"No, you can't," Machado countered. "he's hired by the state."

"I'm giving you advice," his lawyer said urgently. "And that means don't say anything."

"I've already explained to him that his image was found on surveillance footage. He's now officially part of a murder investigation."

"We can deny he was ever there," the lawyer, who Machado realized had not even introduced himself, said arrogantly. "Plenty of people change surveillance footage to fit their needs and wants. Someone could have easily enhanced the video to make it look like him."

He was right about that, Machado suddenly realized. With all the technology nowadays, someone very well could have enhanced the image to make it look like Oxendine, but it was highly unlikely. Machado rolled his eyes. "All the way in New York?"

Oxendine cut off his lawyer, who was about to say something. "You have to promise you won't tell my father."

Machado shook his head. "I can't promise anything like that. When this gets out—and it will—your parents are bound to find out. I'm surprised they don't already know you were arrested."

"Easy. I don't live with them," Oxendine snarled. "I make my own way and I don't need their permission for anything. I don't need Mommy and Daddy's help with my life."

"But your father's going to be suspicious when you don't come into the office today, isn't he?" Machado asked. Oxendine's entire body was shaking.

"I didn't kill Malcolm Ward," he continued, shaking his head almost convulsively. But, finally, he gave something away that made Machado smile. At least, inside his mind. "Danny did. All I did was take his teeth out afterward so that no one could identify his dental records. Danny made me."

Danny. Daniel Eknath. Yes, Machado knew who he was, one of Bodaway Macawi's lieutenants. He had been following Malcolm Ward since his arrival in New York, tracking his every move in a log book. Unfortunately, he had been found dead in a ditch a few days after Ward's disappearance. The search had come to a dead end after that.

"So, how did you wind up there?" Machado asked. They were finally getting somewhere.

Another sigh and Oxendine wiped his eyes. "Danny…told me to come a few days before. He told me Ward was getting suspicious and that he needed more people to help watch him. So, he called me and Joseph, Joseph Micah. He's the other guy on the video." He shook his head again. "Anyway, that day Ward died…Danny overheard him making a phone call to the police station about wanting to testify, so he called us over."

"Don't say that!" His lawyer shouted. "You're incriminating yourself. You don't have to say anything."

"But, if he admits to something, he can get a lighter sentence," countered Machado. He checked the clock on the opposite wall. They had been in this room for almost thirty minutes now.

"That's what I want!" Oxendine said quickly. He stood up out of his chair, practically knocking it to the ground. "Anything to get me out of life in prison."

"Miguel-" his lawyer began, banging his fist against the table.

"No! Shut up!" Oxendine shouted. "I don't want to talk to you. I'll confess to anything if it gets me out."

If this were any other situation, Machado probably would have laughed. In all his career, he had never seen anyone be so adamant about not wanting a lawyer's help after screaming all night for one. But, he couldn't show his emotions here, so, instead, he nodded, understanding. "So, 'Danny' wanted you to get rid of him."

"No, no. Not like that." Oxendine finally looked him in the eye. "He didn't say anything about killing him. You have to believe me. I didn't know he was going to do that. I thought we were just gonna kidnap him. That was all. I had _no idea _that Danny was planning on harming him."

_A likely story, _Machado thought. He was definitely hiding something.

"Ok," was Machado's response. "Supposing that were true, what else are you not telling me?"

Oxendine paled, as white as his complexion could possibly muster, and almost fell against the wall behind him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what aren't you telling me?" He could see it in his eyes. There was something else Oxendine was hiding. The lawyer had a revolted look on his face, as though he had never seen the police interrogate anyone like this before. _Please. _

"I didn't kill Malcolm Ward," Oxendine said for what had to be the nineteenth time. He sank back into his chair and put his face in his hands again. "I didn't kill _him,_" he said. Then, suddenly, he stated in a tiny, trembling voice, "But...I did kill Danny."


	22. The Lucky Ones

**Just Ask Them How They Made It**

Hey guys! Here's Chapter Twenty-Two! Please remember to review and enjoy! I really need feedback! Please help me out, guys!

Love,

May

**Chapter Twenty-Two: The Lucky Ones**

"You killed Daniel Eknath?" Machado asked, halfway shocked. Halfway because he had expected that someone in league with Macawi had done it, but he would never imagine in a million years that it had been the young man sitting in front of him.

More silence followed. Oxendine's lawyer looked so shocked that his pants could have fallen off right then and there had he been standing up. Oxendine was still trembling, but now his eyes were locked on Machado.

Finally, the young man spoke. "It was an accident," he said squeakily. "Sort of..." He trailed off and buried his face in his hands again.

"Come on!" Machado prompted, not wanting to be here all night. It was already twelve-thirty and if he wasn't mistaken, he could hear crickets chirping outside the building. Everyone else was already gone for the night. "Come on, Miguel. What happened?"

Oxendine looked up and cleared his throat. He looked Machado in the eye again, but he evidently wasn't ready to tell the story just yet, not until he got some things straightened out.

"If I tell," he said, and now there was a shadow cast across his face from the light out in the hallway. It made him look much like a serial killer, Machado thought. "What are my options for leniency?"

Machado shrugged. "You'll have to take it up with the prosecution. I'm just the police, but I promise you, you won't get the death penalty. If that's what you're worried about, I mean."

Oxendine nodded. "Alright. I'll tell you what happened."

Luckily, Machado had taken the liberty of carrying a tape recorder with him since there was no security camera. He took it out of his pants pocket and clicked the button under the desk. It probably wouldn't make a difference if Oxendine knew he was being taped or not, but just in case. There was always the chance that Oxendine could be intimidated by seeing the recorder.

Oxendine took a deep breath and put his hands together. "We got in a fight," he said. "I was worried that he might incriminate me for the murder or, that somehow, someone might realize that I was somehow involved, so I got angry with him for the whole thing. I had never wanted him to kill Ward, but, whatever. He did it. But, I was angry…I didn't want to get caught. So, I started yelling at him, and the yelling turned into hitting, and then, the hitting turned into stabbing. I had a pocket knife with me, see. I bought it almost as soon as I got off the plane. I need protection, 'cause I had no idea what I was getting into. Anyway, I slashed him in the head, in the stomach, several other places. I can't remember where. But, anyway, eventually, I stabbed him so much that he just lay there and bled to death." He shook his head. "Then, Joe and I buried him, in a ditch, as you probably already know. We left Ward's ID and stuff there so that everyone would know Danny did it, that it wasn't us."

"But, you didn't take into account the security footage?" Machado asked.

"I didn't know there was any," Oxendine said. "I never saw any cameras."

All Machado could do was shake his head. He had never encountered anyone who had confessed so fast before.

"Well, you'll need to make a signed statement that all of this is true," he said. He reached under the desk for his briefcase and laid it on the table, opening it up to take out a blank piece of lined paper. "Write down what you told me, sign it, and then the prosecution will deal with you."

* * *

_He was standing in the middle of a forest, a dark, damp, rotting forest. There was not a single leaf on any of the trees. No birds, no sounds of any kind. Just him and a bunch of dead wood. Then, in the distance, he saw a figure coming towards him. A woman, with long, flowing red hair, dressed in the most hideous clothing he had ever seen. In witch's clothing. A Dark, raggedy dress covered in cobwebs._

_Before he knew it, she had reached out and cursed him. His entire body was in pain. He was writhing on the ground in absolute agony. It felt as though a knife were stabbing him repeatedly.  
_

"_This is what you get, Henry Butler. This is what you get for hurting me!" Gemma shouted with each piercing of his skin._

_Then, the scene changed, and he fell, deep into a black abyss, where no one could pull him back._

_As if anyone wanted to.  
_

He awoke in a cold sweat, only to realize where he was: in hell, or at least, hell on Earth, as he wasn't exactly dead yet. He was still inside his freezing prison cell, tangled up in his blanket. It was pitch dark. He couldn't even see his hands in front his face, but he could feel them. They were trembling; his eyes had to have been bloodshot had he been able to look at them. He couldn't believe the dream he had just had. It scared him half to death, even though it didn't make much sense.

According to Freud, dreams were supposed to tell you something about your unconsciousness, or something like that. He wasn't exactly sure, as he had never been all that good at psychology. But, anyhow, the dream didn't seem to have anything to do with any unconscious thoughts that he might have had (because, really, he doubted that he had any at this point). Why, for example, was Gemma portrayed as a witch? She had never done anything to harm him and had only ever looked upon him with love. The real witch in it all was Siobhan, of course.

He didn't exactly remember what made him turn away from Gemma and toward Siobhan. Of course, he never exactly loved her as a wife, but so many don't and their marriages work just fine. Don't they? Maybe it was her looks. She wasn't exactly what Henry would have considered beautiful. Her voice was too low, her skin full of blackheads at times. Whatever the reason, Henry had strayed from her and found what he had first thought to be the perfect woman in Siobhan.

And now he was in prison. He got up out of bed and began to pace around the room, in the dark, his bare feet getting a shock as they touched the cold tile. He couldn't believe everything he had gone through over the past year. He had gone from Henry Butler the adulterer to Henry Butler the murderer of two. He didn't know how he was going to survive the trial. He wanted so badly to recant again, to go back and tell the truth, but now he couldn't. His trial date was already set for July. Now, he would have to suffer through the prosecution tearing his defense apart. They probably had mountains of evidence against him. But, in the back of his mind, he still hoped there was that one jury member who would feel sorry for him.

He sat back down on the edge of the bed and put his face in his hands, wondering if anyone cared about him. He thought about his sons, hoping that they were enjoying life with their grandfather, no matter how twisted and evil he was. They deserved a happy life. He thought about Andrew and Bridget, wondering if they were happy. They were lucky. At least, they were when they were together. They had had real love in their "marriage," something that he and Siobhan never had. He hoped they were back together for good.

* * *

There was a high-pitched giggle and Juliet opened her eyes. For a moment, she had no idea what had woken her up, but then she realized. She looked at the clock on her nightstand. It was four o'clock in the morning.

_Great, _she thought. _What a time for Mom and Dad to have some fun._

She blushed. This was a first. She had never woken up to her parents' love-making before. But, now she couldn't sleep. She wondered how the babies were taking it.

"Thanks guys," she whispered and hopped out of bed to retrieve her iPod from her purse and plugged it in her ears. Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain" was blaring. Now, she had to think of something to do.

She thought about it for a while. There weren't any books in her room that she hadn't already read twice or more. She thought about possibly knitting something. She had started on a blanket for the twins a few days ago, but lost motivation halfway through. She leaned back on her pillow and tried closing her eyes. Maybe if she turned her music on over to something soothing…but then she realized that she didn't exactly have any "smooth" music, none of that boring background instrumental stuff that knocked you right out.

She opened her eyes. That was when she got the idea that now would be a good time as any to start a letter to Ellie. She had been meaning to write her one to her since Sunday. She had thought maybe sending her something formal might patch everything up with her. People were always more friendly after receiving hand-written Hallmark-like stuff.

She got out of bed again and went to her little desk in the corner, turning on the lamp light. Grabbing a sheet of paper out of her notebook, she wrote:

_Dear Ellie,_

_I'm so sorry about your eye. I wish there was something I could do to make it up to you, but I know I can't. I hope that someday you'll find it in your heart to forgive me for what I did. I really am sorry, and I'm sorry you got hurt in a car crash. If there is anything I can do to help you, please let me know. Again, I hope you can forgive me. I'm sorry._

_-Juliet Martin_

Yeah. She picked the letter up off the desk and looked at it. That would work. Or if not, at least it was a nice gesture. That was all she could do.

* * *

Bridget leaned back into the crook of Andrew's arm. They were panting, sweating, nude, with not a care in the world. Andrew pressed his lips against Bridget's head.

"I love you," he whispered slowly.

She turned her head to look him in the eye. "And I love you. I can't imagine a life without you."

"Neither can I."

Bridget turned her head towards Andrew's chest and kissed his bullet wound scar. She still couldn't believe she had almost lost him three months ago; and now, here she was, lying against him in the heat of May, so happy, so ecstatic. Her life was in a place where she never would have imagined it a year ago. She finally had the perfect man, children, a real family. Her life couldn't have been better.

They lay there for several moments, feeling the breeze from the open window flutter against their bodies. After a while, Andrew spoke.

"When would you like to get married?"

It was a conversation they hadn't had yet. Bridget had been so excited that Andrew proposed that she hadn't even thought about the actual wedding. It was strange, she knew. A wedding was what every woman dreamed of, wasn't it? But, with her, all she could think about was life with Andrew. One day out of the rest of their lives could wait. She knew she was thinking more along the lines of a man's perspective, but she didn't care.

"I don't know," she responded, pulling the cotton sheet up to her chest. She truly hadn't thought about it. "But, I think we should wait until after Henry's trial. People'll get suspicious if they see me with a wedding ring."

And pregnant. She couldn't forget that. Her stomach would be quite a bit larger by July, and that would certainly cause people to turn heads in the courtroom. But, it would still be less suspicious if she wasn't married. That way, if anyone asked, she could always pull her bump off as another man's baby.

"I agree," he said. "And I have to think of a way to tell my parents."

"What _do_ we tell them?" she asked, running her fingers through his dark curls.

"I don't know," he sighed. "But, once they find out about Siobhan's death, they're going to wonder about you."

"I know," she said.

They had to think of a way to tell them. The easiest thing to do, of course, would be to run away and just not say anything, but Bridget couldn't have that happen to Andrew. He loved his parents and would never just abandon them. The only other option was to just plain tell them the truth. Eventually, that would have to happen.

Andrew read her mind, because he said the same thing. "Eventually, we'll have to tell them the truth."

"And what about our lives after? Where will we go? What will we do?" she asked.

"Well, I was honestly thinking about retiring," he said. "That is, if I don't find a job soon. We could move into a small place and save the rest our money. I know I have at least forty million in the bank. We could save it for the girls and for the baby."

Bridget stole a glance at her daughters through the bars of their cribs. She could see their tiny chests moving up and down slowly as they slept peacefully. Portia grunted and opened and closed her hands, as though she were dreaming about catching something in her fists. Regan was snoring tiny little snores. Their futures and that of the little one inside her were what was most important, but she was afraid. She was afraid of having to let all three of them know about her past one day, about who she really was, about who Siobhan really was.

Bridget looked down, averting Andrew's gaze. She didn't want to tell anyone the truth about who she was or what she had been doing the past year. She still felt guilty about everything. Would his parents even believe the story? Well, they would have to at least believe Siobhan had a twin once word got out that she was dead. Hell, once Henry's trial started, the entire world would know that. And what would the children think once they learned the truth? Would they consider her an awful mother? She could picture them ostracizing her for the rest of their lives, never coming to her for anything and treating her just like she would have treated her own mother had she done something so shameful. She hadn't even forgiven herself yet. She hardly expected anyone outside of her circle to do the same.

Andrew traced the sides of Bridget's mouth with his finger, causing her to look up at him.

"Whatever happens, we'll be alright." He smiled and brought his lips down for a kiss, entwining his fingers with Bridget's. "Everything'll be alright. I promise."


End file.
